


Collateral Damage

by chrissie0707



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt Dean, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Series, Sam Leaves for Stanford, Worried Bobby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-19 02:38:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 93,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7341259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chrissie0707/pseuds/chrissie0707
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obsessed and frightened, John drives a wedge between himself and old friends as a new threat is made from the shadows in the months after Sam leaves. Dean, confused and injured, is just trying to keep up when he falls prey to a vengeful spirit targeting less-than-perfect fathers, and an even more dangerous enemy they haven't seen the last of. Pre-Series. Whump, angst, language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There are a lot of cameos and mentions of characters we've come to know and love on the show, and also some whump, angst, and a whole lot of naughty words.
> 
> There are two liberties I've taken with canon - the manner in which John believes Samuel Campbell died, because I don't feel that the "heart attack" cover story fits well with the way we last saw the trio of Samuel, John, and Mary on the side of that road, and Adam's age when he last sees John.
> 
> I began writing this story in the summer of 2009, and finished it near the end of 2015. I made adjustments as new characters were introduced and new things brought to light, and during that time, I deliberately danced away from other fics concerning/exploring what happened after, or why, Sam walked out for Stanford, so as not to be influenced by another writer's work. For this reason, if there are any similarities between what you read here and any other work of fanfiction, they are purely coincidental.

_Late October 2001_

_Carson City, Nevada_

Suddenly, the ride comes to a stop and Dean's not in Kanas anymore, dropped like Dorothy into a diner on the outskirts of town, deposited without ceremony into a work in progress, a scene already well on its way with nothing to be gained by his presence. He's unsure of his part in this play, lost in a tumultuous sea of strange faces without being entirely sure of how he got here, where he's supposed to go now, or what's going to happen next.

The stops along the way seem like fleeting dreams, or maybe nightmares. Either way, he has a strong desire to believe none of it could have possibly happened. It feels like he was JUST talking to Sam, but the date of the newspaper the man in the next booth is reading says differently, says it's been months now. He doesn't even know where Sammy is.

California, obviously. Stanford. Dean's been there recently enough, seen for himself some evidence of Sam's shiny new life, but he hasn't actually managed to see Sam. He's not sure if that's a sign of strength on his part, or one of weakness. Cowardice. Regardless, he now knows for sure he's more than capable of tracking the little shit down whenever the need next arises. If it ever does. That may very well be a door that won't be opened for him.

Dean has never not known exactly where Sammy is or what he's doing. He's never not looked out for the kid. That's more than the job his father gave him, it's a big brother's duty, his birthright, and he takes it seriously.

He TOOK it seriously.

"Hon?"

Dean raises his eyes slowly, looks up into the kind, though somewhat wary and overly tanned face of a middle-aged waitress holding aloft a steaming pot of coffee. She's got a look about her: cagey, suspicious not just of him but of the world in general. Like she's seen some bad shit in her day and she's maybe on the better side of forty but appears ten years older and sure, he can relate. Has that same weathered look himself, probably. Obviously. He's been passing for five years older since he was seventeen, and you can't pull that one unless you've been through the wringer somewhere along the way.

His eyes tick down to the full mug on the table in front of him and he honestly can't tell whether she's refilled the cup while he wasn't looking or he never drank from it to begin with. There's a hot, stale taste in his mouth but it's not necessarily from the diner's weak brew.

The waitress plants a hand on the grease-stained apron spanning her wide hips and cocks her head, a wad of bright pink chewing gum rolling in her mouth, a cow with cud. "You okay?"

"Sure," Dean answers noncommittally, shrugging the shoulder that doesn't jostle his still tender ribs. He can't help staring at the gum. She doesn't wear a nametag but he's sure it's something like Ginger or Ethel or Maude. Something from a different time, as out of date as this diner.

Whatever her name is, she, her bright-red press-on fingernails and her dented aluminum coffee pot move on to the man with the newspaper, and Dean resumes his lonely stare out the window.

It's not just Sammy that's left him, but now Dad, too. Hell if he knows for where, hell if he knows why, hell if he knows for how long. His father's been taking phone calls in secret for as long as Dean can remember, but the calls have certainly increased in both number and mystery over the course of the last few months.

Something has John spooked, something big but not apparently big enough to have him calling in the cavalry. Instead of being a soldier on the front lines standing next to his father, boots on the ground in the away team, he's here. Discarded, relegated to bench-warming detail for no clue how long, and very little money to survive on. Enough for gas for the drive from Cumberland and to book the motel room he'd been given orders to secure for two nights. But something inside has been gnawing at him, a tiny, annoying voice telling him Dad won't be back in Cumberland by then.

He had more money, hundreds of dollars in cash, small bills he's scammed in bars over the past couple years on those occasions Dad was out on a hunt or a bender and left him behind to babysit a resentful Sam too old to need babysat. At first it was just to pass the time, just for fun because he could, because the marks were easy. He started to stash it away, a false bottom sliced into his duffel, with no real reason in mind but a painfully traitorous pit in his stomach telling him he should have a way to make it on his own if he ever needed to. It's all gone now, every single bill, gone to Sam hopefully, left in the care of a stranger.

It's raining pretty hard now, Dean's own personal storm cloud following in his wake like a second shadow. It'd been unseasonably warm the past few days and dry as a bone when he stopped here and he feels a momentary pang of ludicrous guilt for bringing the storm to this small, peaceful town. His eyes are locked on the two inches of exposed space from where he left the Impala's windows cracked in the parking lot, allowing fat raindrops to _pit pit_ onto the leather. He should go out and roll them up but he won't. He loves that car but the car is Dad's and he's finding it hard to care right now.

John Winchester hasn't felt a need to explain himself in years, least of all to his children, and so Dean has no place to be surprised, not really. He's off somewhere, hunting something. Or so he says. So he always says. Dean isn't regularly privy to the details of his father's whereabouts or intentions when that's the way John wants it, and it's been that way for quite some time. He's been pulled away for gigs Dean's entire life, days or weeks or the occasional stint that brought severe-looking women in cheap suits with clipboards knocking on the apartment door because little Sammy couldn't ever keep his mouth shut when cornered by inquisitive do-gooder teachers. He hasn't been ditched for this long since Sam was old enough to pitch a fit about wanting to stay behind for homework or some shit, but he's well on his way to a solid week this time, without so much as a hint as to where his father's gone to, but that's just as well.

This trip came with no warning, no explanation. Just a few rounds the night before to make sure Dean was nice and sleepy and wouldn't wake when the bastard snuck out in the middle of the night. Money for food on the table in the morning and the Impala parked at the curb like it's Christmas morning. Dad doesn't say _sorry_ with words.

Probably a job, and probably a real one, no need to assume otherwise. Then again, he may have simply felt the need to escape from Dean for a few days. Just like Sammy.

Well, if Sammy can take off, and Dad can take off, then so the fuck can Dean. Even as he sits here across the country, he knows he'll go back. Not the same motel, but the same town. Dad will find him. Hard to miss the Impala in a small town and small towns are where their lives happen.

Dean sits and stares at the coffee and it's really no wonder the waitress is staring at him suspiciously; probably looks like he's casing the joint, needs to pay off the loan shark that painted his face black and blue. He just can't stomach the thought of returning to a small, dank room alone. Any other day it'd be easy enough to ensure he wasn't going back to the room alone, but recent events have left him plenty wary of the intentions behind a smile from an attractive girl. Maybe's he's just going to have to get used to being alone for a while.

The time for pondering _what do we do without Sam_ has come and gone as quickly as a season and now he's thinking _what would I do without Dad?_ Dean had never entertained such fantasies until Sam realized his. Until very recently he'd have considered this train of thought as traitorous, and nothing Dad's deserved. But he's damned sure entertaining such fantasies now, still nursing bruises and cracked ribs and more or less abandoned in this hole-in-the-wall diner with split forest-green vinyl booths but not a decent cup of coffee. Maybe Dad won't meet up with him this time. Maybe Dean could learn to be okay with that. Maybe he could learn to be okay with a lot of things.

Maybe he'll take a break from hunting for a couple of months; God knows he could use the rest. Maybe he'll spend some time on the coast. Maybe get a dog. Maybe find a girl, maybe one who's not interested in disemboweling him. Maybe that yoga instructor back in Indiana. Maybe not, but maybe it will be better than being alone.

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Maybe if he finds a good enough reason. Maybe if they have one more fight. Maybe if he had the stones.

There's something going on, has been since Sammy split. Something his father knows but isn't sharing, documented and studied and agonized over but torn from the journal before Dean could sneak a peek. That lingering smell of char in the stuffy air of the motel room in Maine when he woke to Dad missing pretty much tells the story. Dean never seems to be on the "Need to Know" list. He gazes down at the mug cupped in his hands, suddenly wishing he had something stronger than coffee in front of him despite the day's early hour.

A flash of lightning brightens the interior of the diner and startles everyone but him. It takes a lot more than lightning at this point in the game. Dean counts Mississippi's until thunder rolls overhead, rattling the windowpanes. The fluorescent lights flicker ominously as the storm moves in. The waitress winks at him from behind the counter and snaps her gum. His stomach roils for a multitude of reasons.

He'd like off this ride now, please.

*************************************************************************

_Nine months before_

_Abilene, Texas_

The pangs of guilt John struggles with from whatever lingering traces of naïve, hopeful young father didn't give up entirely the day he found out Dean dropped out of school are growing weaker and weaker as he navigates this rough road with Sam. It was so easy with Dean, probably so easy it should have been cause enough to stop and wonder why. Sam is a horse of a different color. He can't keep his boy calm, can't keep him complacent, and Dean is becoming less and less helpful backup by the day, one foot obviously itching to step out of John's camp but not yet entirely on his brother's side, walking that fine line like he's finessing a high wire. Dean's the card that brings down the house, and he seems to be the only one that doesn't know it. Something's going to give and it's going to be sooner rather than later. The boat's been rocking for a while now, and the smallest shift in the breeze could upend them all into the drink.

It's time to be moving on now. There's something in the air or the water here, someone at that school overstepping their bounds and encouraging the flights of fancy Sam's been having for years, helping him turn them into full-fledged plans. He's gaining confidence along with years, inches and pounds, getting mouthy in new and cocksure ways that John can't find answers for, in ways he's exhausted himself trying. He's too much like his daddy, and John's never been particularly adept at dealing with himself.

He finds a job in Illinois, a tip from Caleb that wouldn't usually be enough to necessitate such an immediate move for the three of them, and takes it without hesitation. Calls the boys into the living room just as the streetlights are coming on, already has his own bags packed and stacked in the corner and Sam's jaw drops when he sees them.

"You've gotta be shitting me, Dad." A disrespect so commonplace these days he doesn't even get popped in the mouth for it anymore.

Dean hangs back a few steps to let the cards play out, those feet of his placed delicately on either side of that line, obviously not looking to be blamed or in any way held accountable by either party later. There might even be a girl in town, because his downcast eyes let John know he's clearly not thrilled to be moving on but will go along with whatever his father says is best, just like always. There'll be a girl in the next town, too. Plenty of them. Dean never stays down or bored for too long.

John quirks an unamused eyebrow at Sam. "Excuse me?"

"I've got, like, four months of school left. I have college applications out. You can't do this."

The eye roll at the mention of college is a reflex, and as he's making the motion John can hardly believe it himself. There was once a day this was exactly what he wanted for his boys. More than just wanted, what he planned for. "I can, and I am. You can finish the year in Peoria, or get your GED like your brother did." He wants to leave it there, doesn't owe Sam any more than that, but something keeps the words pouring out. "And as for these notions of college…well, I figure if it's that important to you, you can find some community college and transfer classes as we move." It's the first time John's pitched this thought, the first time he's offered a compromise to Sam, and he does it so softly that Sam blinks dumbly for a moment without speaking, before rejecting the idea altogether with a harsh bark of laughter that bounces around the room like a ricocheting bullet that manages to strike them all.

A ball of fire roils in John's gut. "There something funny?"

"Community college, Dad? Really? You don't get it at all."

 _I get that I want you safe. I get that I want you and your brother to look out for each other. Exactly what part of that makes me so goddamned awful?_ Never able to say what it is he wants to, John instead snaps, "Is there nothing that's good enough for you, kid? Do you get that your family is what should be important to you? I don't care what you think is out there you need to be doing instead, but you will stay with this family."

Sam shakes his head. "You're such a, a tyrant. This is what's important to me. You don't understand."

"Your brother understood. I never had to put up with any of this bullshit from him. He never wanted to go off somewhere, especially not for something like college." He didn't have to add all of that, and it's not fair to Dean, especially when he has so deliberately stayed on the edge of this conversation. And here John just grabs him with a mouthful of words of which he's not entirely positive of the accuracy and yanks him into the fray. From across the room, Dean's eyes dart to his father but he remains quiet. Sam only has one play now, and it's such an obvious one John could probably be accused of wanting the fight.

"You wouldn't know if he did. He's too loyal a toy soldier to ever contradict you. You just wind him up and tell him what to say, or point him at what to kill. You've trained him to be just what you want. Compliant." Unaware of the irony of his words and the situation they're in, the trap John set that he just tiptoed into, Sam shoots a sneer his brother's way, dipping a lure in the water and seeing if Dean will bite. "Dickless."

John wishes he would bite, just once. Maybe that's why he's laying these stepping stones. Maybe that's why he turns to Dean and says, very nearly dares, "You just gonna stand there and let him talk about you like that?"

Dean works his jaw and his eyes narrow. He studies the pair of them like he's preparing to diffuse a bomb. Finally, he jerks his chin towards the front door. "Sammy, go take a walk."

"No." Sam stomps a juvenile foot that rattles the front window in its frame. "I'm not doing this again. I'm not leaving school just because this son of a – "

Dean crosses the distance between them in a blink, is on his brother like a lightning strike before he can finish the thought. He has the collar of Sam's polo fisted in his left hand and the fingers of his right are making dents in the meat of his upper arm as he hauls his younger, though taller, brother to the front door. They're just a hair shy of evenly matched these days, though Dean won't ever admit to it, and when he shifts his weight, relinquishes just enough of his hold to wrench the door open Sam whirls to the right and takes a blind swing at him, a sloppy closed left fist that lands with a _smack_ just above Dean's eyebrow. He stumbles into the opening door and slams it closed again, nearly taking it right off the hinges.

Dean's grip falls away as Sam steps back, glancing at his hand like it threw the punch of its own accord. He does have the presence of mind to look to his father for a reaction, of which John is slow in forming. "Dean – "

Before John can shout or speak or reprimand, Dean springs up from one knee like a snapped rubber band, tackles Sam around the middle and they go to the carpet in a clumsy roll and flurry of fists. A couple connect, with the meaty _thwacks_ of badly dubbed action flicks.

 _Oh, holy hell._ His boys have tussled before, sure, ground each other's faces into dirty carpet and practiced arm locks and left marks they've shown off to their father like hard-won Boy Scout patches, but this isn't disciplined, or even fun and games. It's ego and it's force and it's the first time John witnesses Dean display the quick temper it's already been so frequently made evident he passed on to Sam.

There's always been an inherent aggression within Dean that manifests in calculated bursts of necessary violence; the hearty whoop after decapitating a monster, or brandishing abraded knuckles won in a fight, be it a bully in the school yard or a dick in a bar in a bad part of town. John's never seen Dean direct that physical hostility at his little brother before, but maybe it's been there inside of him this whole time, and this is simply the first time Dean can't reign it in.

A part of him wants to stand back and let them go, let them get this out of their systems and then deal with the repercussions of acting aggressively in response to every flare of irritation, but that would be admitting a loss of control over the immediate situation, and he's not necessarily feeling like being a hypocrite today. But whether he acknowledges the loss of control or not, it's happened.

John steps in to get it back, never having thought he'd be pulling the two of them off of each other when it's more than pride being attacked. He wiggles a boot into the middle of the fray, plants it on the carpet and yanks the boys apart by the shirt collars. They're all breathing heavily. "You two just about through acting like temperamental children?"

"Yes, sir," Dean responds, like someone pushed a button, before he's even caught his breath.

"Yeah." Sam jerks away, trails a fingertip across his lip, wincing when he makes contact with the split skin there. He studies the smear of blood and crabs back from John a few paces before shoving up to his feet, and he stomps down the hall without another word.

Dean ducks under the hand John offers him and rises quickly under his own power, embarrassed, cheeks flushing. John surveys the damage; a welt the size of a nickel – _or a knuckle_ – is rising over his eyebrow, an angry red discoloration blossoming from the edges around his temple, and another contusion is coming to color under the opposite eye.

"Gonna have quite a pair of shiners in the morning," John comments coolly, in a manner meant to both inquire about Dean's condition and reprimand him for the childish manner in which he just indulged his brother.

"Yes, sir."

A pang of guilt sucker punches John in the heart. "So what do you think?"

"Huh?" Dean forgets his manners for just a moment, or it could be a concussion. He's got a hard head but it wouldn't be the first time, and there's no harm in checking.

John sinks into the armchair and motions for Dean to sit, as well. His son obliges stiffly, perches on the edge of the couch with a wince. "What do you think about this school issue?" he elaborates, trying to get Dean to look directly at him, to judge the reactiveness of his pupils. Boy gets his stubbornness as well as his temper from his daddy, and John has to reach out and grab him by the chin to still his evading fidgeting.

Dean swallows, fingers twitching at his side like he's fighting the urge to probe the swollen parts of his face. He levels his gaze at John. "I think we should let him finish."

 _We._ John's been throwing softballs at him and Dean finally underhanded one right back. _If you're gonna yank me into this like it's two on one, Dad, then I get an equal vote._ He'd never say it with his mouth, but boy, he's shouting it with his eyes. His mother's eyes, and John was sure as hell never able to tell her 'no.'

John releases Dean's face, stands and goes to the kitchen. "What about this college idea of his?" he asks, getting his son a cold compress for his eye and a colder beer for his pride.

"He'll get over it." Dean doesn't sound so sure, but it's the answer John was hoping to hear. More than hoping – expecting. It stops him in his tracks, drops a weight of guilt in his gut like a brick.

Dean speaks up every now and then, when it's important and he knows he might be the only damn thing holding this family together, but maybe Sam's right.

Maybe John just winds Dean up and points him where he wants the kid to go.

He wonders, however briefly, if _knowing_ this will be enough to cause him to stop and think before it happens again, before he tells Dean exactly how high to jump without even giving the kid a chance to ask.

Deep down, he knows that it won't.

**********************************************************************

_One month later_

Dad's getting that restless, listless look again, like it's about time to be moving on, regardless of what he's told Dean or promised Sam, regardless of being smack dab in the middle of the school year. This is a promise he's been breaking since they were kids, and Sam can't actually think they'll still be here come May. He's too smart for that, and he sure as shit won't let them forget it.

They have a tiff – nothing memorable in the words, just the frequency of these fights they're having and the tones they take with each other. Like they're not even family. Dad packs up the car for a job, enough clothes for a week, enough weapons for an army, and Sam's gone in the morning when Dean wakes.

This isn't nearly the first time Sam bolts after a heated argument with Dad. It isn't nearly the first time he storms out of the house with a weekend's worth of his meager possessions crammed into his backpack, vowing with gusto and an impressive strings of expletives never to return.

Dean remembers the nightmare in Flagstaff last year, and the dominos are all lined up in the same horrible formation, waiting for the fall. There wasn't a fight but there didn't need to be for it to be one of the worst stretches of time Dean can remember. In the same childish, chicken-shit fashion, Sam had waited until Dad took off for a job to sneak out in the middle of the night. Dad was gone almost two weeks, thought it was only half that, and near-about tore Dean a new asshole when he got home and Sammy wasn't there. Only with words, with tone and intention; never raised a hand. Never had to.

Dean paced the long hall of the apartment then like he's pacing in the house now, eaten up from the inside by guilt, anger, worry, and fear. He blows up Sam's voicemail, shouting, threatening, pleading. _This mighta been funny the first six times, but dammit, Sam, it's not funny now! Get your ass back before Dad gets home, or I swear to God... We'll work this out. I promise. Sammy, please._

He's only gone two nights, two long sleepless nights that Dean spends productively as possible, because something has changed in the way Sam chooses his words in these fights he picks with Dad. Like there're options now when before he was just blowing hot steam for the sheer enjoyment of it.

Sam slinks back before lunchtime, strutting like a peacock because he knows Dad's not home, and maybe because he thinks Dean isn't either. Otherwise it'd be tail between the legs, because he's still enough a part of this family to know who's in charge and knows it ain't him, and Dean's well-caffeinated and waiting for him, comes off the bed as soon as the bedroom door opens.

He leads with his forearm laid horizontal like a crossbar, connects with Sam's chest and pushes with just enough force that his brother backs into the wall with an expression landing somewhere between surprise and fear, dropping his overstuffed bag to the carpet. Sam's been the taller of the two for a while now but he's been spending too much time reading recently, and Dean keeps him pinned in place almost too easily.

Sam blinks away whatever fear may have been in his expression. "There something I can do for you?"

Dean gives him a little shove for that one, fists the front of his shirt hard enough to stretch and ruin it. "There sure as shit is, smartass. I thought we'd had this talk after the bull you pulled in Flagstaff, man. And just in case what you were aimin' for was me being on Dad's shit list again, I didn't tell him you took off this time."

Sam doesn't respond, sure doesn't make a move to apologize or explain himself, just fidgets against the wall without just yet attempting to dislodge his brother, looks around his head at the mess Dean's spent the better part of two days making of the room, the contents of his bureau drawers scattered across both bedspreads. Dean knows it's not the balled-up socks or boxer shorts that brings his brother's eyebrows together, that causes him to clench his jaw and breathe steam like a bull, it's what he found underneath: thick letters on good stationary with official stamps and seals and letterheads. A dozen of them. That brings him bucking up from the wall. "You going through my things now?"

Dean's grip on Sam's shirtfront tightens as he presses his brother into the plaster, not necessarily wanting to hurt him, just needing him to know how pissed he is. He's a big brother, and that still has to count for something. For anything. "Why do you have things to hide?"

Sam snorts. "Come off it, Dean. You've hidden stuff from Dad before."

"You think we're dealing from the same deck because I stashed a coupla one-hitters under my mattress a few years ago?" Dean gives Sam one last shove to punctuate his anger, maybe wanting this one to hurt. His brother's shoulder blades smack dully against the drywall. "And if I'm remembering right, you're the snitch that ratted me out." He releases Sam, steps away. "And you weren't just hiding this from Dad. You were hiding it from me." _For weeks. Months. Fuck, Sammy._ "Were you going to tell me?"

Sam doesn't seem to have been moved by any of this. "I knew what you'd say."

"Yeah, what's that?"

Sam tugs at the hem of his shirt, puffs himself up to his maximum capacity of pompous ass. "Whatever Dad wanted you to."

 _The only reason we're even still HERE is because of me, dumbass, because I stood up for you._ "That's not fair, Sam." Forgetting for a moment that Sam doesn't care about _fair_ , Sam only cares about _right_.

"Then prove me wrong. I'm going to college, Dean. I got accepted everywhere I applied. Scholarship offers, early admission. This is happening."

"Like hell it is." Dean sinks onto the edge of his bed, his fading rush of anger leaving a gaping hole for the exhaustion to creep through. He looks down at the array of paperwork covering the bedspread. "And what the hell's this address on these letters?"

"I got a PO Box at the post office."

"You got a…don't you have to be eighteen to…" Dean's head snaps up so fast Sam actually takes a step back. "You went out and got a fake ID, which I would be completely on board with under any other circumstance, by the way, and then got your own PO Box? Just to hide this from Dad and me?"

Sam smiles, proud of himself, the little fucker. "Admit it, you're a little impressed. Besides, I didn't really hide anything. I told you both I was applying to schools."

Again, Dean had been hoping the kid was just blowing hot steam when he'd told them that. They hadn't heard a peep about it since. But that's how Sammy plays. _This_ is how Sammy plays. "This isn't applications, Sam. This is a welcoming packet, and housing information, and how the fuck to live with your potluck roommate. This is…" _This is a plan_. "You accepted something, man, and how many times did you have to forge Dad's signature on this shit?"

"You've signed his name a hundred times."

Dean quirks an eyebrow, weighs the options with his hands. "Again, you're failing to see the GAPING CANYON of a difference between THIS, and a bad report card."

"I thought you'd be proud."

"I don't need a piece of paper to tell me how smart you are, Sammy. And you shouldn't, either." Dean rubs his hands roughly over his face. "Jesus, Sam. Fuck, what do you see happening here?"

"Dad's going to understand."

"Dad's not – Sam, did you not take anything away from the first fifteen times you pitched this shit to the old man?" Dean shakes his head. "We've gotta get rid of this stuff. He shouldn't find out you did this."

"He's sure as shit gonna find out when I go."

"You CAN'T go, Sammy. What part of that don't you get? We have an obligation – "

"What, to DAD? He's the parent here, Dean. He has an obligation to us. If he wants to act like a good father for once, he'll support me."

Dean ALMOST clocks him for that remark. Comes up off of the bed and feels the fist forming, catches himself and loosens his fingers with a couple of deep breaths, but he can't keep Sam from seeing it.

Sam gets a rise out of it, smirks and folds his arms across his chest. Dares Dean to hit him, knows he can get him there if he really tries. "I'm going." A low, steady declaration.

"No, you're not." Not with anything near the force Dean wants behind the words.

"It's Stanford, Dean."

"That's nice. Really, it's awesome." Or so he can assume, from this display of passion. Dean couldn't honestly give a rat's ass.

"Do you have any idea how happy I would be if you actually thought that? This is all I've ever wanted. Ivy league, full ride, done deal."

Dean keeps a healthy distance across the room, doesn't trust himself to straighten or approach his brother. He doesn't honestly trust Sam, either. If Sammy wants to play ball, they'll play, but it's all over if they start swinging at each other now. In the moment, he forgets that they already have. "That's a great dream to have, Sammy, really, but we need to take a quick pit stop in a little place I like to call reality." He knows his job is to make Sam see reason, get him to understand that his place is with his family, but it's already obvious this is a futile effort. He wants Sam to be happy, but he wants him to be here more. He needs him to be.

Sam rolls his eyes. "We have very different ideas of what reality is."

Dean takes a big step forward before catching himself and pausing. "Sam, your life is already full of crazy shit other people can't even dream about. Every day, we see things that…if you don't get how cool that is, then I guess I don't know what else to tell you. Just…" He rolls his neck. "Just sit on this for now, please? For me?" It's the only thing he has left in his arsenal that has even a chance in hell of working, and he can't keep it from sounding as desperate as he feels.

Sam stares, doesn't blink for a very long time before tightly nodding his concession. "I gotta go to school," he says, averting his eyes. "I already missed first and second period."

And that's when Dean, the only possible line of defense remaining between Sam and California, is cut off.

It's not fair to say he willingly lets it happen, but he doesn't nearly put up the fight he'd like to believe he did.

**********************************************************************

_Two months later_

Dad finds out, as was inevitable, in a worst-case scenario kind of way. In a loosey-goosey, half-shot bottle of whiskey at the ready on the table, two tablets of Oxy down the hatch to deaden the agony of the shredded upper arm Dean's still trying to stitch up as Sam's waving the goddamn letter in his face like Charlie Bucket's golden ticket kind of way.

"Get that fucking thing out of his face," Dean hisses through clenched teeth, lying if he says he's not still riding a bit of a buzz himself, but finding that the shortest route to stone-cold sober is a mess of Dad's blood on his hands and clothes and streaked across his face. He can't believe he's been stupid enough to think this was all water under the bridge, that Sam wasn't going to start this shit back up and do it at the worst possible moment, and the last thing he needs is Sam throwing a self-important tantrum like the maraschino cherry on top of this shit sundae. He makes a clumsy one-handed lunge for the letter.

His fingertips brush and leave a crimson smear on crisp cardstock as Sam, shitting rainbows, dances out of his reach. "He needs to know."

"He doesn't need to know right the fuck now, numb nuts." Dean is balancing precariously, and not particularly well, on mental and emotional overload, trying to keep as much of his father's blood inside the man's body as he can without giving away the farm that he's drunk as a fucking skunk.

John is the last person on Earth to tolerate being talked about like he isn't in the room when he's sitting right the fuck between them. He swings around sloppily, Dean literally connected by a thread and staggering from his chair to turn with him, and attempts to level a lethal stare at Sam. In his currently doped condition, it doesn't quite have the intended effect. "What do I needta know?"

"Nothing," Dean grits with a glare that does better to hit the mark. _Not now._ He knew this was coming at some point, but not now. _Knock this shit off, Sammy, and do it now._

Almost too predictably, Sam doesn't get the message. "I know I should have said something before, but I got into a bunch of schools, Dad. All of them that I…I'm going to Stanford, and this just came today." Sam holds out the thick ivory paper. "Already accepted pre-Law."

John stares a long moment, redirects and swings surprisingly and surprisingly steadily to Dean. "You knew about this?"

Without a hint of a slur. _Goddamnit._ Dean's jaw drops nearly to the table, and he's suddenly completely sober. "He just told me this afternoon, Dad, I – "

Sam's so distracted when John shoots to his feet that Dean's lie goes unnoticed, the least of anyone's concerns at the moment. His chair falls backwards and the curved needle is jerked from Dean's hand, hangs swinging from the dark thread looped through Dad's arm.

John's eyes are clear, his voice strong and steady as he orders, "I don't care what you've done, or what that paper says. I thought we'd put this issue to rest months ago. You are not leaving this family."

"Come on, Dad, It's not like I'm LEAVING. I'm just going to college. People do it all the time." The kid's so damn excited, really thinks this is the conversation that's going to tip the scales in his direction, and this is the most rational tone he's taken with their father in months. Maybe years. "If you're worried about the money, don't, because everything's taken care of. I got a scholarship, full ride."

Dean shoots a glare at Sam and tugs gently on John's arm. "Dad, I need to finish – "

John throws him off, sending another spray of blood to spot the tabletop and any exposed skin of Dean's that isn't already resembling some gory Jackson Pollack painting. "You're not going anywhere without my permission, and I'm not giving you that."

Sam actually looks shocked, like there was no anticipating this response. "But, Dad – "

"No, Samuel. The answer is no. I don't want to hear about this again." He stalks down the hall towards his room, needle and thread still swinging from his half-closed wound. If Dean knows his father at all, he means to finish the patch job himself.

Sam's chest heaves, red blotches of anger spotting his cheeks and neck.

Dean considers the bottle of whiskey on the table. No sense letting it go to waste. "Sammy…"

"Don't. Just…don't."

***********************************************************************

John's woken in stages by the shrill ringing of the landline, surfacing with small steps from under the warm, thick blanket of the pill and whiskey cocktail he's gone to bed with. Consciousness stokes the fire in his shoulder, and he levels up on an elbow to the painful tug of the freshly sewn stitches in his skin. Most of the line had been done neatly and carefully, if not a bit too slowly for John's liking. He can't really fault the kid for not wanting to tip off his old man to just how much he'd been drinking but John always knows. The last five or so are ragged and uneven, done without a shred of patience and put in himself from an odd angle and without the benefit of a mirror.

He doesn't need this shit right now, whatever this particular brand of shit may be. He's in desperate need of a quiet, dark room and a full eight hours but it doesn't seem like either of the boys is in any hurry to answer the phone. He gropes for it blindly with little more intention than to silence the ring, not particularly caring to find out who is on the other end, though he has a few theories, given the hour.

John flips the receiver to fall next to his face and clears his throat noisily. "Jim, if this is you, you've gotta give me the benefit of a good night's sleep before you send me on another damn wild goose chase."

_"John? John Winchester?"_

"Yeah?" he mumbles, not really awake, the phone's cord coiled around his wrist like a garden snake. It's a man's voice, deep but not Murphy's, not bringing to mind any familiar face. "Who the hell's this?"

_"Well, I'm certainly no man of God, John, and I have no intention of sending you out after wild geese."_

The curious specifics of the response, the knowledge of Murphy, have John's sleep-dusted, groggy mind clearing quickly, instincts setting him on edge as he brings himself back up on his elbow. "Go on," he grits.

_"Let's just say I'm a friend of a friend. A friend who wishes to remain anonymous, seeing as how he gave me your number."_

"S'not a bad idea." John pulls himself fully upright with a barely suppressed groan, untangles himself from the cord and reaches to the side, knocking down a long-empty pint of Svedka to clatter to the floor. He drags the chain of the lamp on the bedside table, bringing his small bedroom to muted light. "What the hell is it you're wantin' with me at three in the morning, _friend?_ " He straightens, swings his legs over the edge of the bed. Even alone in the room, he fights the instinctual urge of his exhausted body to fold in on itself and take pressure off of his injured arm.

_"Calm down, killer. Just have a tip for you."_

"I don't think I'm gonna be taking tips from nameless strangers callin' me in the middle of the damn night." Regardless of his words, the voice is tripping all sorts of bells and whistles in John's head, and he cradles the receiver against his good shoulder to reach under the mattress for his journal. The book is never farther from his person than it is right now, usually hidden from the curious, prying eyes of his sons. His fingertips flip pages until he comes to a fresh one, hastily documents the date and time, followed by a scribbled series of _"Phone call – Murphy? – ?"_

_"Oh, I think you will listen to me, John. If you want to save your son, that is."_

John stiffens, but he's too smart to give anything away, swallows his reflexive inquiry and lets loose the next one in the queue. "What the hell are you talking about?"

_"All these long years hunting, chasing these wild geese of yours, and I've sought you out to let you know what you've been after. Or, perhaps more importantly, what's been after you and yours."_

John exhales violently but doesn't respond. His fingers tighten around the receiver.

_"It's been almost two decades now, you've been grasping at straws, coming up empty, hunting this thing. And I know what it is."_

John channels twenty years of frustration into his next words. "Oh, yeah? And what's that?"

_"A demon."_

The hairs on the back of John's neck rise. "Y'sound pretty sure of yourself."

_"I am."_

"How the hell would you know? And what does this have to do with my sons?"

_"You'll find out. Sooner than you think."_

"Who the hell is this?"

"Dad!"

John drops the phone, throws the journal aside and jumps to his feet as Dean rushes into the room, looking disheveled and rumpled with wide, panicked eyes. "Dean, what is it?"

"Sam's gone."

His young son's disappearances in the middle of the night have become such a common occurrence that John jumps immediately to anger before fear even has the chance to dance across his mind. He has to shake Dean roughly to get him to calm down enough to let him think.

Sam seems to have forgotten the one rule that came with the cell phone he'd been handed: answer the damned thing when it rings. Dean is gulping coffee by the pot and pressing redial like his life depends on it while John runs through every contact in every phone he's got, but no one's heard from the kid. They're still making calls from their small command post at the kitchen table when the little shit comes strolling back in like he owns the damn place.

Went to the library, he all but yells at John when confronted by his father. "Finals," he spits, as though it should have been a given. He continues in a tone laced with a heart-breaking concentration of venom that he's going to take his academic homestretch seriously, no matter what John has to say. He's not going to phone it in and eventually give up the way Dean did, to follow Dad like the brainwashed soldier he always wished Sam was, too. Says it with fire despite the fact they all know that's not the way it happened.

Dean, in the room but barely, in the conversation but rarely, reels back like he's been physically hit, visibly struck by his brother's words. In any case, this one's not meant to be a dig at him. It's never really a dig at him, just Sammy's most needlessly vicious way of getting to John through any means available. Throwing everything in his considerable verbal arsenal at his father like very wordy fragmenting grenades. Dean is an always present, incredibly convenient peripheral target. The only reason they're even still in town for the sake of these damn finals is at Dean's urging, but Sam still heaves word bombs at his brother in an attempt to put a dent in John's armor.

He feels fists form at his sides and slams them to the tabletop, causing both of his boys to jump. "I thought we'd decided the last time you pulled this shit was going to be the last time you pulled this shit."

"Guess it didn't stick," Sam huffs, hefts the strap of his bag over his shoulder.

This steaming heap of horseshit coming only hours on the heels of the threatening and cryptic call he'd taken in the middle of the night allows John's anger to get the better of him, and he tells Sam, "I've HAD it, do you hear me?" He flattens his palms on the table. "I have had it with the lies and the sneaking out and the blatant disrespect."

Sam rolls his eyes, moves to walk away and John stops him. "This is not how your father, not how your family, is to be treated. The next time you pull a stunt like this, your brother and I may not be here when you decide to come back."

Sam crosses his arms. "Is that supposed to scare me straight or something?"

 _Or something._ "I'm just telling you the way things are. We won't continue to indulge you in these childish antics, Samuel."

Dean shrinks back, respectfully not wanting to exacerbate an already fragile situation. He's had a rough time being hauled into the middle of this, ages of it at this point, but he's been careful not to take a definitive stance on either side of the line, bouncing back and forth like a tennis ball for years, loyal to a fault, to both of them. He's always known what's best, though, and recognizes in the look John throws him now that means sticking together as a family.

He gapes at his little brother, lifts a shoulder. Any previously expressed fight has gone out of him, and all he has left in his arsenal is reason. "Sammy – "

"Forget it." Sam stomps down the hall, or attempts as much.

The stranger's warning still fresh and stinging in his mind and suddenly afraid of what happens next, John stops him, grabs him desperately and rougher than intended by the upper arm.

With the help of the muscle he's been gaining at John's own urging, Sam shakes him off too easily and takes advantage of his latest growth spurt. He draws himself to his full height, nostrils flaring in his father's face. Dean is a tangible presence on his peripheral, there to intervene if it comes to it.

John finds himself unable to say what is needed, unable to express the rush of paranoia and fear, of losing what's left of his family, his need to know his children are SAFE. "I'm losing my patience for this, Samuel," he growls, not forcefully, but not without meaning it.

"Right back at you," Sam dares in a disrespectful, spiteful hiss, leaning in.

John feels the fist reforming from his right hand, instincts responding as though there's a threat nearby instead of his mouthy young son looking for this exact reaction.

"Stop it, both of you!" Dean rushes in at that moment, plants a hand on each of their chests and gives John a shove so rough his teeth clack together. "Damn it!"

Already tensed and ready to spring, the hand comes out on reflex, catches Dean just behind the ear as he positions himself between them. A glancing blow, enough to startle but not to hurt him. The motion sends a fiery rip of heat through John's ravaged shoulder, and he lets the limb hand limply, fingers tingling. Dean blinks and Sam advances like he was released from a slingshot.

Dean reaches out, grabs his brother by the sleeve and yanks him backwards. "It was an accident, Sam."

"Is this what we do now?" Sam asks heatedly, but stumbles into an awkward stop. He snorts and glares at John. "God, I can't wait to get out of here," he mutters.

John's plate is already overfilled at the moment, and he lets the aside go without comment. In any case, he's already given his orders; that's a conversation that's already been had, a decision that's already been made. He rubs his face, gathers himself. After a breath he uses his left hand to point at each son in turn, stopping on Sam. "Neither of you is to raise your voice like this again."

"Yes, sir," Dean says quickly.

"You got it," Sam spits.

"And at the risk of repeating something you've already been told, Samuel, you are not to leave this house again without my permission. I…I can't guarantee your safety if you do." It doesn't quite come out the way he'd intended, but it does the job all the same.

For a flash, a blink, there's a stunned look in Sam's eyes before his face hardens. It's almost like this inadvertent threat, this plea will be the one to force him to cool his jets.

Almost.

Sam spins on his heel and retreats to their bedroom at the end of the hall. The door slams just loudly enough to communicate his frustration without bringing John in after him. A perfect mix he'd perfected at too-young an age.

It's before noon but John lifts an overturned glass from where it had been drying on the counter, grabs the bottle still on the table from last night and pours a splash of whiskey, gulps it quickly. The liquor is warm and thick as it burns a trail down his throat, draws his attention from the renewed pain in his shoulder. Dean stands by, as though awaiting an order.

"Go cool him down," John obliges, extending a finger from the glass to point down the hall.

"Yes, sir."

"Dean." He wants to apologize, needs to chew on the words a moment before swallowing them with another gulp of warm whiskey. This one goes down much smoother. "Cool him down."

"Yeah."

It takes more than another glassful to sand down the rough edges of his pain and conscience, for John to convince himself he's done the right thing by keeping this to himself.

*****************************************************************************

_Two months later_

This was a long time coming. Not entirely unsurprising, yet all the same somehow still catching Dean completely off guard. It had seemed a question of when, not if, and he's spent the past few awful, tense weeks steeling himself for this very moment, just in case, just to be prepared but never for a second wanting to believe it would actually come to this. Every day's been harder than the one before, every fight worse than the last.

It's later in the day; dusk, just. Neither sunny nor dark in the small house but that achy, inky gray in-between. The end of this one awful day and the beginning of many more. The end of something, definitely. The television is still on, muted sounds and lights filling the otherwise silent house. _Godzilla_ on, black and white and grainy and to think they'd actually been sharing an afternoon of comfortable, companionable quiet before the shouting started. All of it for show, because Sammy knew exactly what was going to happen. He lit the fuse and stepped away and waited to see the light show.

Dad is immediately and sloppily pouring three fingers of a strong whiskey into a glass, the alcohol splashing over the rim as he tips the bottle. He stares out of the back window with the freshly opened bottle on the counter next to him, a tacky ring of amber liquor glistening around the base. A hulking statue, silent and stoic. He's been careful not to make eye contact with Dean, hiding whatever he may be feeling about what has just transpired, assuming he feels anything at all. Anger, for sure. Disappointment. Maybe guilt. Hopefully guilt.

Sam is gone, and this isn't the all-too-familiar taking-a-walk-around-the-block-to-cool-my-head kind of gone, this is a packed-bag-in-the-closet-bus-ticket-in-my-pocket-leaving-nothing-but-the-bed-sheets-GONE and Dean is experiencing a kind of violent crash of conflicting emotions he's never before felt directed at either his father or brother, too hard to pick out exactly what he thinks about this turn of events, himself. His own stomach-wrenching mash of anger and guilt, at least. But he's certainly not in any position to express a coherent thought if he can form one.

The curtains rustle as a warm breeze blows through the house, disturbing loose papers and unleashing a greater sense of apprehension. Dean moves slowly across the room and carefully shuts the front door, left wide open in the haste of a furious, desperate, and uneasy escape. Unsure of what else to do, he stays there by the door, and stares at the back of his father's head, waiting to see the awful confirmation of what he already knows in his gut.

Sam's not coming back. Not on his own.

"Go get him." His father's voice is sudden, thick, and gravelly.

"What?" The wind playing with Dean's ears, clearly. That was a door John shut long before Dean shut this one.

But John whirls, sloshing more liquor over the rim of his glass, whiskey glistening on his knuckles as it drips to the floor. The anger has given way to an unanticipated flash of fear. "Go get your brother. Drag his ass back here if you have to."

The first order his father's ever given Dean that causes him to hesitate, just long enough.

****************************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

The bedroom door flies open, the slam of the knob into the wall waking Dean. He snaps upright from where he'd finally fallen asleep sometime during this second night of his ultimately futile vigil, slumped exhausted and uncomfortable against the cheap headboard.

The guilt of giving up on Sam hits him immediately, a hollow pit in his gut echoing with the pounding of his own heart. A knot in his neck screams for attention and he kneads it, blinking, and tries clearing the dense cobwebs left by only a couple hours' of tense, restless sleep. He remembers deciding there was no way he was going to allow himself to fall asleep, no way he COULD, not without knowing Sammy was home and okay. Sammy, who's not answering his phone and hasn't even had the decency to let his family know whether or not he's still alive.

"Let's go."

"What time is it?" Dean asks before the heaviness in his father's voice or the implications of his words sink in. He grinds a knuckle into his eye. After the spots dissipate he throws a glance at the window. It's not even light yet, not really.

John's eyes are bright but determined. He's come to a decision, doesn't take long to bark at Dean, "Time to go." Short and sweet and oh-so-Dad.

Dean fumbles for his watch, discarded on the bedside table, and squints. Five-thirty. Early enough for Dad to mean it. He rolls back, mouth open and ready to argue but he isn't given the chance. The doorway is empty.

Dean's heart skips and he stumbles off of the bed, banging out into the hallway after his father. "Dad."

John ignores him, going to work cramming anything in the house worth taking into a pair of beat-up duffels open on the kitchen table. The table is little more than a piece of lawn furniture, the thin aluminum legs shaking as he adds more weight to the bags.

Dean sees only the essentials: weapons and clothes already emptied from closets still on the hangers, non-perishable food items from the cabinets and bottled water from the refrigerator. It looks like they're holding a goddamned food drive in the middle of the kitchen. All of the items are easy to transport, and the alcohol that's been such a prominent fixture these past two long days is nowhere to be seen. "Dad, wait." He feels like an idiot but he owes to his brother to ask, "We going after Sam?"

"No, we're not..." The inside of the trash can _clinks_ ominously as John drags it across the dirty linoleum with a chuckle; evidence of the whereabouts of the MIA liquor and how his father has spent these two long nights. "I got a call." He doesn't look up, barely acknowledges Dean is in the room, just deposits the overstuffed can against the back door and returns to his packing. "We've got a job waiting."

Dean swallows, not sure he believes him, but that's never been a factor before. "Where?"

John doesn't stop stuffing the bags, his movements almost mechanical in their deliberation. "Since when does it matter where? A job is a job and we're leaving, now."

John Winchester is not a patient man, and there's no question Sam's time is up. Even while part of Dean can't actually believe they've stuck around town this long, he can't help translating his father's real intent or the subtext here: _We're getting as far away from your brother as possible._ Sam's given up on family and now his family is giving up on him.

Dean's heart pounds, guilty and desperate and maybe even scared. "Dad, he could still come back."

John slams his hands onto the unsteady tabletop, sending the bags and his coffee mug to the stained linoleum with a crash.

Dean jumps back as jagged shards of the mug and liquid bullets of scalding coffee explode outward on impact. His head is spinning but he has the presence of mind to be impressed it was actually coffee in the mug.

"He's not," John says evenly, still refusing to look at Dean, "coming back." There's a startling finality to his words. Maybe this is no longer Sam's decision to make. Maybe John's taken it out of his hands completely.

Dean stands straight and tall, angrier at that single thought than he is for such an unwarranted outburst. Angry that John won't look him in the eye and knowing everything this means. That he's not being given a fair chance to make a case for Sam. That there's no argument here. That anything he dares say is wasted breath because they're leaving, now, and that's the way it is because that's the way he says it is. Angry still with Sam for putting them here. Angry with himself for letting Sam out the door in the first place, for having so many opportunities to keep things from getting this far and for not speaking up every possible chance he got. So he stands by and says nothing, fuming without being sure just exactly at whom he's so mutely furious.

John raises his eyes and his right twitches slightly, the smallest possible acknowledgement of an overreaction, of his displaced anger, but he'll never breathe a word of apology and never take it back. That's not the Winchester way. "Pack up your things, Dean."

There's a lot of instinctual, inherited fight in Dean and there always has been, buried deep and tucked away beneath years of training, of loyalty and respect and "yes, sir" and "right away" and "how high?" But not now, or he's likely to be left behind, too. Left behind or beaned in the head and stuffed into the trunk to be taken along like luggage, which is what they should have done with Sammy in the first place.

He nods and backs slowly onto the carpeted hallway, wary of placing his bare feet around the blue porcelain pieces of John's mug, careful not to leave anything of himself behind in this awful place. He goes back to the bedroom he shares – _shared_ – with Sam and with muscles tense, with every instinct screaming to snap something in half, but he takes care not to slam the door and give either of them the satisfaction. He tugs on his boots and begins the task of violently stuffing clothing and belongings into his bag without any thought of doing so neatly. It doesn't fit right, as repacked items rarely do, and he yanks roughly on the zipper, daring the damned thing to break, frustration mounting.

It's not as though this is remotely the first time Sammy's ever done this, but it's the first time Dad told him not to come back, regardless if he meant it only in the heat of the moment. The first time Dad doesn't expect him to come back. Maybe doesn't want him to, even.

This was different from the starting gun and they all knew it. Sam had a packed bag hidden in the closet, threw in a few extra digs he knew he wouldn't have to apologize for later, and told Dean to stay the hell out of it. And also for the first time, Dean stupidly obliged, hung back and chewed his lip and seethed but did it all without intervening, believing like a doe-eyed child this was something the two stubborn asses could eventually work out.

Dean's trying to stay positive but the reality of the situation hangs heavily in the air. Sam knows the rules and this is a violation of them all. With his silence, Sam's told them to go fuck themselves.

Dean glances at Sam's side of the room, at the things he's deemed unworthy and left behind. The things reminiscent of an entire LIFE he's deemed unworthy. A few t-shirts he grew out of over the summer when he made like a weed, a couple of old notebooks from school, his baseball cards, his mitt, all of the cheap, tacky tchotchkes he's picked up in gas stations and visitors centers on their many trips back and forth across the country, collecting since he was a kid. That one hurts.

_Damn it, Sammy._ Through sheer force of will, Dean manages to make room for all of it, until the old seams are stretched to their limits. By the time he finishes packing up in the room the small house is empty and feels it. John is arranging his own bags like bulky canvas puzzle pieces in the trunk of the Impala.

He looks up and meets Dean's eyes over the top of the car. There's something hard to define there in his father's expression. At least this isn't as easy as he's pretending it is. "You have everything?"

Dean nods curtly, pulling the door shut as he steps outside, putting the kibosh on what was "home" for the lengthiest duration since the Winchesters became a nomadic clan. Home in Abilene for nine long months, for scheming, secretive Sammy, so he could get the grades and the diploma he wanted, and secure the means to disappear from them into some kind of fairytale life. Putting the kibosh on the childish notion they could ever survive as a real family. The rent is paid through the end of the month; it will be at least a week before anyone discovers they're gone. Just the way they like it.

John shuts the trunk. "Okay. Let's roll."

His father is acting so nonchalant about what's happening here, Dean wants to throw something at his head. But it's a nice tactic. Has to be a tactic, because John's a planner, a plotter, not nearly as impulsive as people think, and it's working, because this almost feels like a dream, detached and somehow not really happening.

John walks slowly around to meet Dean on the passenger side, staring at the car keys in his hand as Dean slings his overstuffed bags into the backseat. As Dean straightens, he holds them out. "Here. You take first shift."

Dean wants to take a page from Sammy's book and stubbornly stand his ground. There's enough guilt over letting the kid out the door, over not speaking up more, he feels he owes his brother that much. He moves slowly to take the keys, knowing that if he accepts them he's telling his father they're okay here. No hard feelings for the temper earlier, no blame for what's transpired. Knowing that as he accepts them, he's turning his back on Sam. None of which he wants to be true.

But Sam's not the one standing here making any kind of offering, Dad is. John knows all of Dean's weaknesses, and he gives in embarrassingly easy. For this, for putting Dean in this predicament, for not being here for this moment, the little shithead deserves it.

Dean convinces himself of this long enough to feel less like a cheap hooker as he slides behind the wheel.

First shift, nothing. John lets him drive the entire day. Dean's too tired to remember to be angry until he thinks of something funny and glances in the rearview mirror to tell Sammy and Sammy isn't there. Sammy's always been there. A chill washes over him, settling in his bones, and he knows it won't go away anytime soon.

*************************************************************************

John's taken over driving for a while, give Dean's eyes a rest. He knows how the lines and lights start to blur after the first twelve hours.

There's no job, but John doesn't figure he actually needs to verbalize that for Dean to realize it's the truth. The truth hasn't much figured into their plans in the past, and he didn't expect Dean to do much more than be in the car when he was told to, and that's exactly what happened. Dean's never really been full of surprises.

There can be no question that John has pushed his boys, tested them to see what they're made of. Sam can go blow for blow, verbally, while Dean will shut it down. Very rarely has he ever risen to the occasion. John's never truly yelled at Dean the way he's yelled at Sam, but never needed to, to get the same result. Dean doesn't need to be scolded, he learns his lessons from the silent disappointment.

They were different as boys and are growing even more individually distinctive as they become men, but that kind of logical reasoning had never given the desired justification to Sam's tirades, so instead he'd always blamed John for any and everything Dean had ever said or done that Sam didn't agree with or approve of. Leaving school was just his current favorite example, and one that was topical as the academic year wound down.

According to Sam, it was John's fault when Dean started screwing around with random girls, because they never saw an example of a healthy, functioning relationship. John's fault when Dean got busted for smoking at sixteen, fighting at eighteen, drinking at nineteen, because he set horrible examples for them during their most impressionable years.

Dean's senior year, coming down the homestretch, John got caught up in an exorcism, his first real experience with a demon, and under the worst possible circumstances. A six-year-old girl with strawberry blonde curls and the sweetest blue eyes before the demon took hold, and he threw himself into the job, desperate not to lose such a young soul to another nasty something that goes bump in the night. He'd been on a bit of a hot streak, considered himself a formidable match for any nasty son of bitch that happened to make the mistake of crossing his, path despite the fact he'd never yet had a demon do such a thing. Didn't have much information at all regarding the species, and made a couple of phone calls, looked up an exorcism rite some acquaintance claimed would work, and took on the thing alone.

He was wrong, horribly wrong and horribly ill-prepared, and it was three weeks before the boys tracked him down, handcuffed to a hospital bed and comatose in what might as well have been a full-body cast. Concussion, broken back, fractured femur, and four cracked ribs. Demons are rare, and the exorcism rite wasn't properly researched, and the whole ordeal left him barely whole and drugged to the clouds but the only suspect in the poor girl's apparent murder.

Dean was eighteen and some change when he dropped out, more than old enough to make his own decisions, and spent six months working two full-time warehouse jobs to take care of his father, to pay for medication and frequent checkups and months of physical therapy, not to mention keeping food on the table for Sam. And that self-righteous snot of a kid was never once truly concerned about John's health. Never gave a flying fuck for his father's wellbeing, only of Dean's education, the now lack thereof, probably giddy at the thought of having something else he could accuse of being John's fault.

When it comes to Dean finishing high school, in the sense of attending a graduation, and not just the GED it took him another eighteen months to find the time to finish, well, it's the one instance Sam threw these accusations around that John actually agreed with him. But that's a pain and a disappointment that he keeps to himself in his heart. This was never the life he'd envisioned for his boys when he was a young father full of hope for a bright future who had started college funds and baseball card collections. But it's the hand they've been dealt, and his priorities have shifted as that imagined future itself has, and now all that matters is keeping them both safe. Alive.

Sam never understood, never cared to try. They weren't being protected in his eyes, they were being sheltered, held captive, not allowed to have a real full life.

Samuel's a smart kid; strange, but smart, and destined to be a different sort of man than his father or brother. John's much more at peace with that thought than he's been given credit for. He's proud of his son for his independence, just not the way he seems to be unburdened by any thought as to what family should mean. The fight in Sam is an expression of that natural independence, a different kind of strength than Dean or even John, himself, possess. His desire to keep Sam at arm's length had been a purely fear-driven response. A crippling panic that he won't be able to protect his boys when it counts.

John's only hope is that Sam is happy with his decision and safe, and that in the very least Dean recognizes this is simply an uncomfortable stage of life that will pass soon enough. He can't undo what's happened and can't say anything to make it right. He isn't angry at Sam for his reasons, only his methods. How could he possibly be mad at the kid for running away from his problems because what the hell has HE been doing for the last eighteen years?

Dean is and always has been John's Jiminey Cricket, his conscience. The voice of reason he thought he'd lost when he lost Mary.

Sam doesn't get it, never did, because he doesn't remember. It's difficult to swear to a life of vengeance for the murder of someone of whom you have no memory. Even a parent. She's just an idea to Sam, a story. He's never understood, and John prays every night that he never will, not in this way.

Dean remains sullen and silent on the bench seat next to him, just along for the ride, and in more ways than he thinks he knows. His elbow propped against the door in what has to be a very uncomfortable manner, chin in hand as he stares out of the window. They're passing nondescript fields and have been for hours, so John figures anything must be better than facing him.

John works his jaw, digs a dusty olive branch out of the aching corner of his heart and reaches over to pop the glove box. "Wanna listen to some Zeppelin?"

Dean flinches away as John roots for the tape. "Sammy doesn't like Zeppelin."

John draws his hand back and slams the compartment shut with enough force, he nearly steers the Impala off of the asphalt. "Damn it, Dean, Sammy's not here, is he?"

Dean frowns, and the look in his eyes could be accusatory or simply contemplative. Damn kid's gotten so grown up lately it's difficult to tell what he's really thinking. "Yeah, I know." He shifts on the seat, and the leather squeaks beneath his jeans as he settles his gaze once more out the window.

John readjusts his grip around the steering wheel and nods. "We'll stop soon." They go the next two hundred miles in silence.

**********************************************************************

Dean couldn't have thrown a dart blindfolded at a map of the continental U.S. and hit such a backwoods shithole of a town and he can't help thinking it's intentional on his father's part, a little "Fuck you, Samuel. Just try to find us." Not that he will.

He's nervous at the prospect of being holed up alone with his father. He has his comfort zone, same as anyone. Loves his father, obviously, but hasn't ever really spent time with him without Sam. But Sam hadn't given any consideration to what Dean said or thought or wanted, so maybe it's better this way.

Just because Dean didn't think Sam would ever walk away from them doesn't mean he never suspected the kid had it in him. Stubborn little son of a bitch had been making threats and packing bags since he was eleven years old. Dean just thought family and duty meant more than freedom. Thought he'd make his way back to them by now.

His father seems to have thought so, too, from the look of it. His initial short-tempered anger has become a less intense, quiet brooding. It's something Dean recognizes in the shadow of his eyes, in the way his head jerks at every rustle outside of every crappy motel room: regret. A muscle in his neck tightens, readying his speech for when Sam finally catches up. But he never will, and though they won't yet admit it out loud, they both know it.

The big brother in Dean, the one John created purpose for, appreciates his father's regret but sees no reason to offer comfort or understanding, instead lets him stew in his guilt and seemingly endless supply of liquor. The whiskey puts a temporary lid on John's lingering anger, leaves it to simmer and turns instead to feed his pride, steel his resolve. He's keeping to himself even more than is characteristically typical, coming and going at all hours without mention of any legitimate job being taken.

John is falling back into all of his old patterns, every behavior Dean remembers from those roughest years as a boy. The weekly disappearing act, the drinking in the middle of the day. Long stretches of not speaking, too distraught and withdrawn to console his young son the way a father should. Sam couldn't remember those days, which Dean figures made the whole disrespectful shit thing easier to pull off.

In the past, every time John's taken to this type of behavior, Dean's hung back, played housemaid, babysitter, made sure Sammy did all of his homework and had something of a substantial meal at dinnertime, silent and sullen but putting on a front like everything's okay. Spaghetti-O's on a chipped plastic plate. _It'll be okay, Sammy._ A sturdy hand on a shaky shoulder. _It'll be okay, Dad._

But Sammy isn't in the room this time to anchor Dean, and without that weight on his ankles, Dean finds it's easier than he'd ever thought possible to make his own way out into town to find new ways to lose forget his troubles and lose himself. He lingers nightly in the back corners of small bars, getting the kind of reputation Dad's always warned against, downs four tall draft beers in a respectable amount of time and surprises himself when he turns down the advances of a pretty barfly. He wouldn't mind the companionship, he's just not looking to take anything home with him.

Dean also keeps a small stash in the room, nothing compared to the portable liquor store Dad travels with, but a six-pack or two everywhere they stop kept separate from his father's bottles. Alcohol has always made him loose and warm, and with the boost of liquid courage he starts to stealthily call Sam from those corner booths, every chance he gets. There's never an answer on the other end, which he really feels he deserves, and he leaves a handful of slurred voicemail messages ranging from saddened to furious to desperate.

_"Sam, man. I'm not lookin' for an excuse or an explanation or a goddamned reason. Just gimme a call and let me know you got to where you were goin'. You owe me that much."_

_"Fine, Sammy, you don't owe me anything. Is that what you wanna hear? But you answer when I call you. If you had any idea…what…get your head out of your ass and call me. Now."_

_"M'not mad, Sammy. It's m'job to watch out for you, and I can't…if you're not…m'not mad."_

He disconnects the call and goes home with the barfly.

***************************************************************************

Another week passes, and still without so much as a single word from Sam, they've momentarily settled someplace slightly more long-term, and slightly more civilized, a two thousand population town named Red Lion in western Pennsylvania. Something mildly claustrophobic, a motel with water-stained ceilings next to a biker bar with a blinking neon sign next to a liquor store with a pitiful selection of craft beers and appalling prices.

John's waiting to gather the nerve to go after his son, who's too smart for his own good. Even if they don't know where Sam might be at the moment they know where he'll be eventually, come mid-August. There won't be a new identity, he'll be Samuel Winchester, and he'll be almost too easy to find. Even as he considers it, he knows that will never happen. They're both far too proud for that. But he can keep an eye out, an ear to the ground, and do everything in his power to continue to ensure his boy is living his new life as safely as possible.

He's tried to straighten this all out in his head the only way he knows how; running from his problems and drinking enough to sleep a few hours at night and avoiding the son who's spent his life in his shadow, and none of that makes him particularly happy with or proud of himself. But John is who he is, and that is not a young man anymore, and he can't change who he is now. At the same time, he's tried to give Dean the space to do the same, to find a way to get over this anger, the silent seething he's so keen on. So uncharacteristic of the son who has always managed to point out the rational explanation for everything, always talked down the rest of his temperamental family. Dean's given up on them. That's what's making this time different. The hole he feels, the piece that's missing isn't Sam's presence, it's Dean's faith.

"We won't stay here long," John assures his son, voice rough from disuse.

"Whatever." Dean is crouched in front of the room's mini-fridge with his back to his father, staring at its sparse contents. He hasn't moved in ten minutes. "I mean, yeah, okay, sure." He tenses but doesn't turn around, expecting to be head-slapped, expecting to be yelled at.

If he really thinks it through, this is deserved, wholly, the attitude from his son. John had hoped maybe with a couple of days and a couple hundred miles behind them Dean would start to forgive him for letting Sammy go and for much worse. For telling him to stay gone. Maybe then he can try to start forgiving himself, too. Wishful thinking, clearly.

There isn't much good he can do here, crammed with Dean like sardines in a can in this dismal motel room, his guilt mingling in the stale air with his son's anger, confusion hanging like a dark cloud over both of their heads.

Dean is John's boy, but he isn't a boy, really, and he isn't a civilian. He's a hunter, trained by his father, and even in this newly discovered rock-bottom in which the two have found themselves Dean's scrutinizing, studying, and interpreting every word and every facial tick. He can't help searching for some shred of evidence that John knows more than he's saying. That something more is going on here than fleeing in the opposite direction as Sam. Whether he's right or wrong, John's not yet ready to reveal his hand.

Dean continues to crouch in front of the fridge, fidgety on the balls of his feet, presumably deciding whether John will disapprove if he starts drinking before noon. He won't, not today or most likely many of the following days, and excuses himself, leaves the motel room to take a walk a block down to the bar, where he knows Dean won't follow. He has things to think about that he can't properly attend to with his boy in the room.

For the moment, John has lost Sam to a battle of time and place, and he's not going to lose Dean in a much worse way.

John settles onto a stool at the otherwise empty counter and orders a whiskey neat, double. Slaps two twenties on the smooth oak surface to let the barkeep know he means business and this is only the first drink of several. There's a Phillies day game on the TV behind the counter and big bass-fishing on a second monitor mounted in the corner, fuzzy pictures, muted sound. His gruff demeanor and haggard appearance draw judgmental stares from the handful of local patrons seated in groups of two or three at round tables around the room, or maybe that's just the guilt talking. Anyone found in a bar this time of day in the middle of the week with a judgmental bone in his body is probably throwing stones from a glass house.

With crow's feet and a salt-and-pepper beard, leaning on an elbow facing the televisions, the portly man tending bar is maybe John's age. Or maybe John just feels older than he is. "Y'want the sound?" he asks when he notices John's attention drifting to the baseball game, accent crisp and Eastern Coastal.

"S'no bother," John responds, sipping from his glass.

The man squares up to the bar top. "Not from around here, are you?"

John's in as much a mood for small talk as he ever has been. "What gave me away?" he deadpans, sipping lazily from his glass. "Fact I walked over from the motel next door?"

The man stares a moment and squints, deepening the handful of lines to the corners of his gray eyes, then moves on to the next customer down with a huff and a curse released under his breath.

Might make it difficult to get that second whiskey in a timely manner, but the last thing he wants is to trade words with a stranger. He's been on the receiving end of more than enough unsolicited advice from people calling themselves his friends for years.

John takes in the whole of the bar with a quick, looping scan and confirms that his appearance as an obvious outsider and curt interaction with the well-meaning bartender has shed any attention he may have otherwise drawn from his fellow patrons. He still pauses before pulling out his journal. There's withholding information, and there's blatantly hiding it, and the line between the two is blurring as John persists in keeping Dean out of the loop, justifying his son's anger. Blame.

Dean is seeking answers to questions he'll never ask aloud, out of a respect John has also spent a comfortable stretch of years growing accustomed to.

Dean's of an age where he should _want_ to ditch his old man and take off on his own for a while, or in the very least be okay with spending some time apart but that's not Dean. He doesn't do well with being left behind, not now and not ever. Sam's always been independent, but not Dean. Both boys lost a mother, but Sam never really knew what it was to have one. It hasn't been fair to Dean, running out on him like this, but it's the only way John knows to deal with things, and he will understand. Eventually. He always understands.

In the meantime he'll cling to John until the very end, like he did as a toddler. Dean has grown up to be everything Mary was, everything he lost and can't get back and it's killing John to be alone with him.

There's something familiar and uncomfortable about the way he's acting lately, going out and it's almost as though he's daring his father to do something about it. He always comes back, and it worries John more when Dean gets in late and hasn't been drinking than when he has, because that means clear-headed sulking, which leads to the kind of bullshit Sam always pulled. Like when John would say "leaving at six on the dot" and Sam would saunter into the house at six-fifteen, smirking, knowing they would be there waiting for him.

Dean knows something is up, but this isn't something he wants to bring Dean in on, not yet. The kid is a natural, great backup, on par with hunters that have been in the game since he was in diapers, but John's never had Dean by his side unless he was confident he knew the score up and down and every which way. Knew his boy was trained up and armed to the gills and well-protected. Accidents still happened. Surprises, slip-ups, leading to emergency room visits and days of missed school and bouts of heavy drinking and suffocating guilt and "It's okay, Dad." But it never was. Isn't still. Sam preferred to be left behind in the room or in the car, but, truth be told, sometimes that was the way John preferred it, too. He was safe there, out of harm's immediate way.

Dean isn't a boy anymore, but that doesn't change the basic structure of John's clinging paternal instinct. He doesn't remotely consider himself an expert in the field of demonic possessions, or the possibilities of demonic presences outside of possessions. He doesn't think himself a formidable match, so maybe it's possible that might be a touch of embarrassment keeping him quiet, too. Dean idolizes John, and that ain't ego talking.

There are days John hates himself for turning Dean into this. There was never any hope for himself after Mary was taken, but Sammy was just a baby and Dean was young enough. They could have had it different, _better_. Mary's brother, maybe. Just because John had never made a fraternal connection with the man doesn't mean he wouldn't have taken good care of his nephews, wouldn't have raised them as well as his own sons.

He spreads the pages out on the polished bar top, opens to the newest section of entries, to the page headed with the date of the mysterious midnight call. _Unidentified caller. D and/or S = danger? A?_ A few pages of notes and theories but nothing concrete; a list from memory of everything he knows about demons. A solid page and a half.

"Whatcha got there, friend?"

"My business," John says pointedly, slamming an elbow down on the pages. "And I'm not your friend." He rotates on the bar stool to drive home his words with a glare but there's no one there. The seat is unoccupied. A couple of middle-aged housewives not entirely hard on the eyes frown at him from a table across the room. He sniffs, swallows, and gathers the papers, hands shaking slightly with an unfamiliar and unsettling tremble.

His head is spinning, and the whiskey isn't doing its job, isn't slowing the world down and allowing him to focus on the task at hand. It's because of Sammy. The fight, weeks old but still feeling like a fresh wound, is weighing on his mind, his son's absence is influencing his train of thought and attitude. What he did, what they both said, and the look of seemingly perpetual betrayal and frustration in Dean's eyes ever since. Like Sam's prone to bouts of jackassery but that's okay because he's still just a kid and this was John's responsibility. HIS play to make and he dropped the ball. He blew it, and he did so with gusto. These are things he's not used to seeing there staring back at him, never has before this week. He's been spoiled with twenty years of those green eyes gazing up at him with awe and admiration, loyalty and respect, and nothing less. Like he's some sort of goddamned hero. Maybe that's John's fault, too.

The cell phone in his pocket chimes, startling John to the point he drops the journal back to the bar top as he digs into his jacket pocket. He's still not used to the damned thing, takes a long sip as he brings the phone to his ear. "Yeah."

_"John?"_

"You were expectin' someone else?"

_"Heh. Charming as ever, Winchester."_

"Cam? Well, damn. How've you been?" So off-kilter and working a comfortable buzz from the double whiskey, hell, he initiates small talk. He almost can't help himself; it's been a damn long time since anyone's sounded this happy to hear John's voice.

_"Listen, John, I know it's been a long time, but this isn't exactly a social call."_ All of a sudden, Cam's not so much friendly as urgent. _"I've had some information cross my table. Information concerning you and yours."_

John's fingers tighten around his empty glass as he settles back onto the bar stool. This is starting to feel a little too familiar. "What are you talking about?"

_"Not over the phone. We need to meet. I'll send you my location. Your cell phone do text messaging?"_

"What messaging?"

_"Text? You serious you don't…it's like little bursts of email from one mobile to another. Join us in the new world, Winchester."_

"Now you sound like my son." And sunuvabitch if that doesn't move him to motion for the barkeep to refill the glass immediately. "Doesn't anyone just talk on the telephone anymore?"

_"You know I don't like making long calls. Fuck, I'm antsy already with this one. Government's got tabs on all that shit."_

"You that paranoid, Wiseman? You think these email text messages of yours don't leave a record of some kind somewhere?" John takes a long sip, reveling in the trail of heat cutting a path down his throat.

Cam chuckles. _"Now there's the John Winchester I've known ten years. Maybe I'm not the only one who's paranoid."_

_Well, Winchester, he ain't wrong about that._ "Yeah."

_"I'll see you and the boys soon."_

John swallows, eyes what's left in the glass and pulls another twenty from his wallet. "Yeah. We'll see you."

This is for their protection. This is all for their protection and Dean could give a rat's ass. Just wants his brother by his side. John can understand that. He's used to being left. Dean isn't.

If this call from Cam has anything to do with the warning he's already received, then maybe Sam is safer on the other side of the country, after all.

He can't explain this new threat to Dean. Doesn't have nearly enough information to being him in on this, can't gauge the severity, the reality of it. He'd spook him, probably drive him to some half-cocked race across the country to his brother's side. And then John wouldn't be able to protect either of them.

Sam's gone, and he's not looking to make a comeback anytime soon. Gone because he wants to be, and if it's what he wants then John will leave him to it. The door will always be open for him, but John's not about to go traipsing after the disrespectful shit. Dean's just going to have to get over it, or at least learn to live with it. A distracted hunter turns into a dead one real quick.

John loves his boys, no question, and neither more than the other. Sam for his strength and spirit, Dean for his heart and sense of duty to his family. Both for the way they've made him smile and laugh, for anchoring him through his darkest days and giving him two very good reasons to press on. He's not angry with Sammy. Not in the way he's expected to be.

Regardless of the cryptic call from Cameron, and the apparent direness of the situation looming over their heads, they stay in that crap motel in Pennsylvania two days longer than John's instincts want him to, because if Sammy happens to saunter in, smirking, they'll be there waiting for him.

************************************************************************

East. They're moving east again, obviously, but Dean doesn't have a clue as to the final destination Dad must have in mind. They'd packed up the car and hit the road, another nonspecific "tip" from another nameless "friend" and this time Dean didn't even bother prying for more information, knows it's pointless. Since they left Red Lion, John has barely said two words outside of "Keep an eye for state troopers" and to bark clipped directions. His eyes have been down, focused entirely on the journal open on his lap, cover flipped over just enough to discourage Dean from sneaking peeks. He flips through pages covered in familiar scrawls, sketches, and newspaper clippings by a flashlight tucked under his armpit as the sun disappears, very intent on studying these years and years of notes without telling Dean what it is he's studying.

John seems to have shut down for the moment, closed the conversational door and thrown away the key. Dean can't break through, not that he's really giving it his best try. Hasn't convinced himself that he wants to. He's the reason Sammy's gone, after all.

Dean can only hope his father doesn't eventually slink off into the night without him.

Or maybe Dean hopes he does.

"What are you writing about?" Dean bravely ventures, figuring he's owed at least one explanation from his father, but also interested to see if his voice still works after hours of disuse.

He figures wrong; John shoots him a glare, grunts, closes the book and tucks it and the flashlight back into the glove box. "Nothin' you need to worry about."

_Maybe you want to leave, too,_ his eyes seem to dare. _Maybe you should. Maybe I won't stop you. I didn't stop him._

Dean shakes his head, tells himself it's just his imagination.

They don't venture off of the road to grab the sleep that's much needed by both of them, but drive through the night. Dean doesn't mind the long shifts at the wheel; the car is not only something he's always admired, but maybe the only thing in his life that he can control right now, even if he has no say in their heading. John takes over so Dean can doze sporadically and stiffly in the passenger seat until they arrive finally in New York, a quaint little Main Street posing as an entire town surrounded by forest, a row of storefronts and offices with paint peeling from the clapboard siding lining either side of the two-lane road. Two streetlights, a gas station on the corner. A bar, of course, is the telltale sign that they've gotten to where they're going. A road sign points the direction of some backwoods school, presumably one-room.

John directs the car through the town's center, farther upstate, well off of the beaten path. To one-way streets made of gravel, rundown and abandoned buildings. Not a soul in sight. Eventually even the gravel fades away, and John guides the Impala down a narrow, rutted dirt road, and Dean's spirits sink as they draw farther and farther away from the sights and sounds of what little civilization was back in that town.

"Cam's place is up here on the left."

Dean startles, turns to his father, who hasn't spoken in what feels like days but has maybe been an hour. _Cam?_ He recognizes the name: an old, old friend of his father's. He can't be sure but he doesn't think they've spoken in ages.

John tries to smile. At least, that's what Dean interprets the pitiful grimace on his face to be. "We reconnected a few days ago. The, uh, tip. The job. He's out of town for a few days, huntin' somethin' or other but said we could use the place." Long pauses between each word, like it's taking copious amounts of effort to even speak to Dean. Like it's probably a lie. The maybe-a-smile widens. "We'll be okay," he adds.

"Yeah." Dean's not convinced, wonders if the reassurance has sounded this pathetic every time he's uttered it over the years. It must show in his face because John immediately returns his attention to the road before him.

What John failed to supplement was his plan to deposit Dean at Cam's empty, raccoon-infested house like a bag of frozen groceries needing to be unpacked before spoiling and meet up with his old friend on whatever this hunt is. The car jerks to a stop in front of the dark house and John throws it into 'park'. "Spare key's under the potted plant."

Or a cracked pot that maybe once was home to a living plant of some kind but is now a tangle of dried, unidentifiable roots and stems. Dean's hardly through the front door before the tires are kicking up a dirt cloud in their haste to get off of the property.

_Shocker_ , he thinks bitterly, dropping his bag with a hollow _thud_ to the dusty hardwood floor of a dark and unfamiliar home. Looks like Dad wasn't too keen on being cooped up again so immediately with Dean, not that the last week hasn't been a blast. It's interesting, really, that he hasn't picked up on all of the facial cues to give him the hint that he's being so obviously fucking lied to, considering how similar his father and brother's faces have become as Sammy's grown. Not to mention their habits, patterns.

He had this coming, he guesses. Dad's blame, his resentment. There's a way to think about this where it's entirely Dean's fault. He replays it all in his mind on a constant loop, keeps thinking, maybe hoping, it's all been a very vivid dream; there's no way in hell this has actually happened because there's no way in hell he would ever have allowed it to.

But he had. Dad told him to go get Sam, and he'd hesitated. The angel on his shoulder had said to _go_ and the devil had said _why bother?_ And the little horned fucker had put up enough of a fight that by the time Dean finally made it to the bus stop, Sam was gone.

His eyes sweep the small, simple room with disappointment and disdain. The house is old, not rustic but wearing down, dilapidated, long-abandoned and practically held together with masking tape and zip-ties. It's dusty, drafty, and it's difficult to believe someone lives here, besides whatever four-legged critter is making that skittering sound in the attic over his head. He can do little more than assume his father will be back at some point to collect him. It's a pattern of disdain and assumption he's grown accustomed to. Dean has always hated this part.

The house Sam walked out of had been an affordable rental in a not-so-good part of town, small and without the least bit of luxury, needing exterior and structural work they weren't really bothered by and would never bother with. It had done little more than serve as a roof over their heads while Sam finished high school, but it was a HOUSE, and for all its faults it had been a substitute, however poor, for the home Dean had once known. The home he still dreams about, but Sam couldn't remember.

He should have told Dad, should have told him a lot of things. He knows that now. With enough warning, Dad could have stopped Sam.

**************************************************************************

John didn't plan on dropping Dean at Cam's before meeting up with him, not really. He'd been working up to it for hours, the whole damned way. Telling Dean, bringing him in on this like he deserves to be. He wants to. The midnight caller, the tip from Cameron, the fact he or his brother or heaven forbid the both of them are in some sort of danger.

Oh, he wants to tell Dean, wants to know he's not losing his goddamn mind here. He's going out of his head with worry, too much so to remember that Dean is the one stabilizing force in their little family. The hopeful smile, the steady hand, the "it'll be okay, Dad." This isn't yet a danger he can confront, just whisper of a threat on a breeze, and there's no point in worrying Dean, unless he selfishly wants to draw a "it'll be okay, Dad" from his son. He does, but he doesn't deserve it, surely doesn't want to send Dean half-cocked and ill-informed across the country after his brother. Because he'll do it before John can tug on the reins.

His boy, a formidable hunter in his own right, has every right to know there's something going on. What stops him from speaking every time is the _something._ He needs details. Devil's in the detail, and he can't work on a battle plan without them. So he hadn't been set on ditching Dean, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time, not knowing exactly what his old friend has to tell him. He's not naturally insensitive, but can't seem to escape such accusations and perception. It's an evolved trait that's become circumstantially necessary over the past two decades.

John was as innocent and go-lucky a boy as there ever was, before life started happening, all of the things that cause you to give up hope of the future you spend your entire childhood constructing in your imagination. He quickly realized there's no such thing as luck. Not good luck, anyway. There's been a hole inside since he was young, since well before he and Mary were married. A wide, yawning hole, a canyon, and he'd thought it was family he was missing. The father who'd left for work one night and never come home. The quiet and emotionally distant mother who never recovered. The siblings who were never to be any more than an overheard conversation between his parents. Thought it was the idea of life without Mary, without a family.

Things were different after her parents were killed, the mugging that left him paranoid and wary and Mary guarded and scarred on the inside in ways he couldn't understand until she was taken from him just as much without warning. That was just the first time he'd been left feeling helpless, unable to protect her, sucker-punched by a mugger Mary wasn't ever able to properly identify for the police.

There was never closure for that incident and strangely, he never truly felt welcome anywhere after that, like he was crashing the party, and the party was simply existing in this world. That horror ultimately brought them closer, the connection made by experiences they're unable to explain to anyone else. Two bruised souls who were meant to be together. Shattered halves of one whole. She was sweet, and she smiled, and she was a wonderful mother to two perfect baby boys, but there was something sad about her that she never came back from after that night.

He was always struck with a guilty feeling, responsible for her emotional state, forever unable to cheer her for longer than a couple of minutes. Then she was gone, without any chance for goodbye, and left him the boys. Everything since has been about protecting them. They're all he has left in the world. Everything he's ever done, every decision made, every road driven has been a strategic move to keep them safe. He doesn't often feel the need to justify his actions or choices and this is no different. There's a threat out there, and he's not traditionally been a man of the kind of luck for this to be of the small or insignificant variety.

He guides the car away from Cameron's and back towards town, such as it is, and easily finds a spot to park the Impala at the curb outside The Bar. John shakes his head as he pushes his way inside, where he hopes it's easier to find a cold beer than a bright idea.

Cam Wiseman is easy enough to spot in the sparsely populated tavern, looking just as John remembers him. Aluminum-rimmed glasses perched on his long, pointed nose and a scruff of graying facial hair on his cheeks and chin that gives him a dusty and unkempt appearance. Squirrelly, shifty eyes. Surely, no one has ever accused him of being a handsome man.

The hunter sees John hovering in the doorway of the smoky bar and raises a hand, straightens halfway and settles back quickly at his booth, anxious not to draw attention of anyone other than his friend.

Snakelike, John weaves his way through cigarette smoke, high tables, and bar patrons to the dark booth in the back corner. "Cameron." He nods a greeting, offering his hand.

The man grips John's hand in his own meaty, sweaty one and gives it two firm pumps. "Good to see ya again, Winchester." The jacket his wears is more conversation piece than cover, a scuffed black leather with a split in the seam over the right shoulder. An old battle scar to match is concealed by the layers of fabric, a slash like a knife that had come from a razor-sharp claw.

He's just as much a physical nervous wreck as when they worked that shifter job in Anaheim six years ago. The guy is a mess of anxieties, most of which are nonsensical. He's constantly worrying about the most mundane things: tapped phones, teenagers in black clothing with lip piercings, low doorways. He wrings his hands, jiggles his leg. A thick gold band adorns his left ring finger. John doesn't know the story there; the two hunters have shared every tale but that first nightmare, the one that threw them into hunting in the first place. Cam plays with the ring constantly, rotating it on his finger, missing the wife that had worn the mate.

John subtly wipes the transferred sweat from his palm onto the thigh of his jeans as he slides uncomfortably into the booth opposite his old friend. An unspoken but universally known rule: it's first come, first serve for seating during all meet-ups, and everyone wants eyes on the door. Even though John knew he'd be coming in on the losing end, he can't help feeling uneasy, unguarded with his back to the room of strangers.

Cam's eyes narrow behind his thick lenses as he searches the aisleway John left empty as he took a seat. "I know you wanted to meet alone, but did you really leave the kids at the old house? It's a small town, small bar, they wouldn't mind the boys being here. Doesn't mean they'd serve 'em."

John watches Cam spin the gold ring, resists the temptation to do the same with his own gold band. Resists the even stronger temptation to smack the man's hand and tell him to stop fidgeting. Resists the swell of fatherly pride to correct Cam's calculation of the boys' ages, that Dean's entered the bracket of legal drinking. Not that his age had ever stopped him before. "Don't worry about the boys. If you have something serious enough to tell me to drag my ass clear across the country, then you tell me. S'no need for them to be a part of this discussion."

Cameron chuckles. "Anyone ever tell you what a sparkling ray of sunshine you are? Or a sour son of a bitch?"

"More of the latter," John answers honestly. "House looked dark."

"Yeah, s'more of a safe house than anything, these days."

"Where're you staying now?" John asks matter-of-factly, because he isn't surprised. The house is from his previous life, when it was shared by Cam and the wife he's never spoken of.

"Here and there. Motels, rentals, such is the life. Couldn't stomach staying in the house my family died, not like that lush Singer did."

"But you stay close to town?"

Cam grins his trademark nervous smile, revealing a chipped tooth, and lifts a shoulder. He motions over John's head with two fingers to the bartender. "Yeah, I'm wacky that way."

John raps his knuckles on the tabletop. "All right, Cam. You called me, set this all up, and you know how I hate suspense almost as much as I hate wasting time. We're doing a bit of both now. What exactly is it that you have to tell me?"

Cam sniffs, adjusts the bill of his well-worn Cincinnati Reds cap, once vibrantly hued but now a faded dark pink and ringed with salty sweat stains. "Why didn't you bring the boys? I'd love to see 'em. Last time I did they were only about yea-big." He holds a hand out level with the flat surface of the table. "You at least got a picture of 'em?"

John sighs and indulges the man for a moment only because he doesn't yet have a stiff drink to distract him. He lifts off of the seat and drags his wallet from his back pocket, pulls out a folded picture taken earlier in the spring.

"They've grown up nice, John. Some real good looking boys you've got there." Cam smiles fondly and nostalgically taps Sam's grimacing face in the photo. "Gonna look just like his daddy."

_Yeah, over his dead body._ John pulls the photo away, folds it reverently and tucks it back into his wallet.

"And the little one, what's his name?"

There are things he regrets saying and people he regrets saying them to, and Cam is currently making a strong case for both. He'd been a lost, low place when he met Cam, not long after he found out he had a third son. John swallows, can't help the dip in his volume as he grits out, "Adam."

"He must be almost ten by now."

"Turned eleven this spring." Sometimes the only way to shut up a man like Cam is to give him what he wants with as few words as possible.

Cam whistles, low and long. "You make it out there yet?"

John squints, feels his fingers curling into a fist without a glass yet between them. "I mean it, Wiseman. Forget about the boys, and tell me what you know."

The other man smiles, crooked and without humor. "Yeah, okay. So, like I said on the phone, I had some concerning information cross my table. Got a psychic in town, Rita, helps me on cases every now and then." He slings a casual arm over the back of the booth.

Not John; he's tense, eyes scanning the bar in a constant loop. Outside of the expected neuroses, the other man's lack of awareness of their surroundings is setting him further on edge. "Town's only got one gas station but it has a psychic?"

"How long you gonna nitpick and insult before you let me tell you what you want to know?"

John ducks his head, obliges. "What about her?"

"She was chatting with the spirit world a few days ago, and your name came up."

"How's some backwoods psychic know my name?"

"Ouch, thank you, there you go again. She doesn't, you paranoid son of a bitch." Cam pauses and shakes his head as a busty and not completely unattractive waitress with a wild frizz of auburn hair sets two bottles and a pair of frosty mugs on the tabletop. "Thank you, sweetheart." He pauses long enough for the girl to move on. "She called me with a tip, like she always does, name of some poor schmuck needing our kind of help. Just so happens, this time you were the schmuck." He expertly pours the beer into the canted glass and takes a sip. "I was the one recognized your name, not her."

John opts for the bottle, takes a long pull before speaking. "What'd she have to say about me? What kind of help am I supposed to be needin'?"

"That the spirit world, whoever it was she was talkin' to, was concerned about you, said you'd appreciate a heads-up about what you should be hunting. Wanted her to get some information to you." Cam reaches into the inner pocket of his corduroy jacket and pulls out a handful of folded pages, offering them to John.

_The spirit world? Mary?_ John quirks a dubious eyebrow and drags the pages across the water-stained table. "What's all this, then?"

"Weather reports, specifically of recent unseasonable temperature fluctuations and lightning storms in areas not prone to things like lightning storms. And these," he continues, sliding over another few sheets of loose paper. "Are police reports and newspaper clippings, livestock mutilations and a handful of unnatural human deaths."

John raises his eyebrows. "I'm not following."

"These, my very green friend, are telltale signs of demonic activity, all over the good 'ol US of A."

John stares at the papers, working to process both what he's looking at and what Cam's saying. "These dates…"

"Yep. All over the past few weeks." The other man is eyeing him carefully, gauging his reaction. "Anything about this standing out to you? Any reason you can think of you'd be connected to demons popping up all over the country?" Cam sets a wrinkled map on the table next, thick red marker bleeding through the spots he's marked. He runs his fingers along the map. "Almost like a trail, huh?"

John rubs his chin, points to the spread of information, feeling the itch to order a stronger drink. "This…all of this, you're tellin' me this means there's been a demon in these cities?"

"'Least one," Cameron nods. "There isn't a huge archive of examples to compare these to, took me a couple of days, but it does match some that I've read about. Heard about."

"We've been here. All of these places." John stands abruptly, collecting the papers and shoving them into his journal.

"What? Who? John, wait – "

John leans back over the table, gets right in Cam's face. "There's no waiting. If these are signs of a demon, then it's been following me," he says in a low, harsh tone. _Following us._ "You should have told me immediately, not dicked around like this."

Cam's eyes harden. "How'm I supposed to know where you've been and where you haven't? Shit, John, people go months without hearing from you. You damn near dropped off the face of the world after what happened to Bill."

"You could have called me."

"I did call you, John, and I'm just lucky you decided to pick up this time. When I call you, I never know if you're going to answer. And if you don't, I got no clue whether you're just a jackass or if you're dead." His lip curls. "The way I hear it, those boys of yours don't have any better luck than the rest of us."

John taps the folder on the tabletop and straightens. "We're done here, Cam."

Cam throws himself roughly against the booth's seatback and brings his beer to his lips. "Yeah, John, I figure we are."

John makes his way out of the smoky bar as quickly as possible without also doing so suspiciously, and he won't waste time mourning the friendship lost here. He now has two sources telling him of a seemingly imminent threat, and it doesn't seem to be against him alone, but at least one of his sons, as well. He doesn't know much about demons, but if the reports he's been handed detail a demonic travel plan, then it's on the same trajectory as theirs.

********************************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	3. Chapter 3

Dad doesn't leave him alone at Cam's for long. Not really, considering how long Dean had prepared for him to be gone. He's back before Dean's had time to pass out for the night, stretched on top of his coat on a dusty burgundy couch that smells like stale cigarettes and general unwashed human male. Is in the house, actually, making a hell of a racket.

The wide sweep of John's arms along the counter knocks a stack of dirty plates and mugs into the sink, a line of empty beer bottles into the trash can with a crash; Dad's patented take on cleaning, as well as a wake-up call.

Dean shoots upright at the clatter of porcelain dishes in the sink, his arm coming out from under the flattened accent pillow in a sweep of its own, knife in hand. His manners are slow in catching up, or maybe he left them back in Red Lion the way Dad left him here. "Jesus Christ, Dad."

John flattens his palms on the countertop. His shoulders are tight and tense. "You wanna try that again?"

Blinking, Dean sets the knife down on the cushion next to him and rotates his stiff body into a seated position. "Sorry. Meant 'hi.'"

"Don't get smartass with me."

"No, sir." Dean frowns. Something obviously happened while he was with Cam. He's as tightly wound as Sam's been the past few months. "What's going on? What happened with the job?"

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with." John curls his lip and pulls away from the counter, takes in the state of the house. "You responsible for this mess? Jesus."

_No, but thanks, Dad._ Except for the line of dead soldiers; those had been him, and the reason for the current pounding state of his head. "Of course not, it's only been a few hours, Dad." Dean can't fight both his headache and curiosity at the same time, and lets it slip out. "Is there something you're not telling me? We're supposed to be a team."

John still hasn't truly looked at him, and Dean's not an expert in much, but he knows that's a sure way to spot a damn liar. "No, I'm your father, and you are my son, and there are a lot of things I don't tell you."

Dean swallows the sting, and the truth of it, the verbal gut punch. "Is it Sam?" Things having to deal with Sammy are the only time his father gets this worked up.

"No."

"Are we safe?" Dean persists, annoyed with being left here like he was and emboldened by that annoyance.

"As much as we ever are." John's eyes finally rise to meet Dean's, and Dean can't identify what exactly he's seeing there. Fear, anger, determination. Maybe the ever-present cocktail of all three.

"Okay."

"Okay. We're moving. In the car in five."

***************************************************************************

Over the course of the next several nights, while Dean sleeps fitfully on the other side of the tacky, nondescript motel rooms, John matches every city, every stop to somewhere they've passed through since leaving Abilene, a loaded shotgun on the table next to the lamp and a salt line on the threshold and windowsill, everything done after Dean had departed the world of the waking.

All points heading East, when Sam is fleeing the opposite direction. According to Cam's research, the westernmost states seem clean of demonic activity for now, meaning Sam should be safe. Yet somehow, this information does nothing to ease the dread in John's heart. There is also to take into account the fact all of this information is coming from a supposed clairvoyant. A friend of a friend is not a solid source in John's book.

He can't make heads or tails of these so-called omens Wiseman tipped him off about. He's never entertained the notion of tracking any single paranormal or supernatural creature for any prolonged amount of time, so it's nothing he's familiar with. Three days hunting a Wendigo, a week and a half on a chupacabra, sure, but he wouldn't consider himself much of a hunter if he allowed any breed of nasty mother to live long enough to be tracked beyond a couple of weeks.

He doesn't like people knowing his business, hasn't gone to any hunters to cash in any of the numerous favors he's been sworn to be on the owed end of, hasn't asked for any help. Only a few guys have been introduced to the boys, become a part of their lives. Not to say there aren't options, avenues he could take. But there are also doors he's not looking to open again anytime soon. Places he wouldn't be welcome, calls that would go unanswered. It's unfortunate, because he knows he's cut himself off from some valuable resources, burned bridges on which he should have been doing regular maintenance.

Now that he has these baseline reports to work with, the freak lightning storms and such, John's been spending small pockets of time at the local public libraries, giving it a go at digging up more, but he can't figure out the world wide interweb or whatever the hell it is, and he'll be damned if he's been reduced to the kind of sorry son of a bitch that asks for help from some nutty librarian in a cat hair-covered sweater. Sam was always the researcher of the family, and would be able to make quick work of this, suss out whether there were any other cities experiencing these weather fluctuations with the snap of a finger. Dean may not be as quick as Sam at the keyboard but would be able to put the computer to good use, but John still isn't ready for that. Not just yet.

He doesn't stop sniffing out jobs in the meantime, doesn't stop hunting. The job keeps his hands, and his mind, busy. It keeps his son busy, too.

Dean's starting to get lippy, whether due to some inappropriate homage to his absent smartmouth brother or the emergence of some personality defect he's been politely and respectfully squashing until now. It's manifesting in bursts of smartass, argumentative comments regarding their sleeping arrangements, the constant hunting, John's drinking, lately even the volume of the radio.

He'd had something of an attitude not too many years back, not unlike any typical teenage boy, had been a regular little shit for an unseemly amount of time and done his own bouts of sneaking out or failing to come home all together. But selective memory kicks in, and after he'd given up on school and focused fully on hunting with John he'd more than made up for all of it, told Sammy to cool his jets when he started to get mouthy in all the same ways he had only a few short years earlier.

Just as Sam will one day make up for all of it. Of that, he's sure.

****************************************************************************

Something changed while they were in New York, some catalyst Dean hasn't been able to identify. A bell sounded that Dean never heard because he wasn't by his father's side, was dumped at a shithole, shoved to the sidelines, and John is off to the races, ready to hunt. Ready to kill something. Maybe everything.

They embark upon a string of hunts, one right after another. More than coincidence or hunter's luck. There's no stopping now that they're going. John is a different version of the man than Dean's ever experienced. Dangerous, predatory, dispatching monsters and spirits as swiftly and violently as possible. Obscure creatures Dean's never heard of before, things John doesn't waste time teaching him about.

His silence is verging on frightening, his ferocity concerning. Or it would be, if such things were open to discussion. Dean's just along for the ride, just set dressing. John doesn't seem at all concerned for Dean's safety, and even less so for his own.

They're careless in their hunting in ways Winchesters have never been before, and more than a little lucky. They're missing an integral piece: the voice of reason, the preacher of caution. More than once Dean is mere seconds, inches away from being put down for good. He's sporting bruises that won't fade that draw pitiful looks from his father, in all of the visible places, and a few more discrete discolorations he's been able to hide with layers of clothing.

Dean continues to drop clues for Sam like breadcrumbs as they move. Notes left in motel managers' offices, the margins of phone books at corner payphones; the way they've been trained. For all he knows, John is right behind him, collecting the messages and tearing out pages, but the optimist in him hopes not.

They don't stay in any town for more than a couple of days. Dean is running on fumes, little sleep and a lot caffeine. John is running on something else entirely. Something Dean is too tired and sore to attempt to define. He's losing track of the days, lost in an endless sequence of hunt, kill, rinse and repeat. He smells constantly of gun oil, blood and peroxide, rapidly losing his appetite for food, more and more understanding his father's need for a fair amount of alcohol to make it to the end of the day.

He's rundown, and not nearly as quick as he should be, and Dean takes a swat from a stocky no-name creature with razor sharp claws and nearly leaves half of his face behind in a parking lot in the middle of Ohio. It's bloody and serious enough that Dad doesn't trust himself to sew Dean's face back into place, lets a credit card go to ruin in a four-hour long emergency room visit.

"Kid dropped a glass of water and damn it all if he didn't slip and fall right onto the pieces," John wearily cheeses the nursing staff, playing through his own aches and exhaustion while Dean, hurting and embarrassed, bleeds through a crazy amount of gauze as they stitch him up. "And to think his mother would've named him Grace, he was a girl."

Stacking humiliation on top of pain, and then thankfully some pain killers on top of that. Dad unloads him into bed back at the motel and makes like he's leaving the room as soon as possible.

Before he gets to the door Dean calls his father out, slurred and sloppy with his left eye obscured by a sizeable swath of bandage. Tells him maybe Sammy was onto something, was right to leave like he did, and promptly passes out before having to face the immediate consequences, leaving John to whatever he has to do that's more important than caring for a child who'd nearly undergone a facial transplant.

Dean awakens the next morning to a face feeling very much on fire, but the way John clucks his tongue disapprovingly when he reaches for the amber pill bottle filled with doctor's best orders, it's clear he blames the medication for Dean's loose lips the night before.

At least he's willing to let it appear that way, and Dean figures it's better to go along with the play. If Sam was around he'd stomp his foot and pitch a fit and make sure Dean took every tablet as needed and prescribed. But life's a bitch, Sammy ain't here, and the pills swirl around the toilet bowl like a school of small fish and go for a swim in the sewer.

Somewhere in the flat fields of the Midwest Dean gives up paying attention to where they are. He couldn't care less; the towns, the jobs, they're all beginning to blur together anyway. John says this next job might take a week, maybe two. It's just a line, one he's been hearing since he was a kid. He makes no comment in return, just cleans the guns and sharpens the knives and locks the door but not the deadbolt when his father goes out for "a day or so" to chase a lead.

Another week goes by and they check into a seedy motel on the outskirts of Philadelphia. John drops his belongings to the narrow tabletop and Dean tosses his bag to the bedspread. The rattle of the frame against the thin wall knocks a picture from its hook, falling to the dirty floor with a crash of broken glass that reverberates in his still-pounding head. A crazed, exhausted bark of a laugh escapes him. "Dad…"

John turns, eyes dark, a mix of sadness and anger. A dare, a plea – _call me on it again, son. Tell me what sort of life I've given you._

But Dean is all his father has left and he knows it, and so he loses his nerve.

"I'm just a little tired. I'll, uh, clean this up."

John's expression softens. "We'll take a couple nights. We'll rest. Okay?"

"Yeah, thanks. I'm…just a little tired." _Tired_ doesn't begin to touch it.

"Your face still hurt?"

_Nope. Feels fanFUCKINGtastic._ "A little, I guess." Dean blinks, sending a line of fire from the corner of his eye all the way to his chin.

John nods without direct eye contact. "Rest." He starts for the door but pauses in the middle of the room. He walks back to the table to collect his journal before going out. The door shakes in its frame as it closes and Dean finds himself frozen in front of the mirror that hangs on the back. He nearly looks like something that needs hunted, himself. Ghostly pale face, sunken eyes framed with dark smudges, stitches along his hairline hanging black and loose, a purpling bruise on his forehead. An extra from one of the zombie movies he used to use to scare Sammy. _Night of the Living Dead Dean._

He washes up in the sink, pulls out of his soiled attire and rifles unsuccessfully through his bag for something clean to change into. He settles on a black t-shirt turned inside out and the least bloody of his two pairs of jeans, reloads the rest of his ripe clothing into the duffel and heads out of the room. The Impala is still parked outside, so wherever his father's gone to, it's within walking distance.

Dean shuffles down the sidewalk to the manager's office and the man points him to a laundry room around the corner, a utility closet-sized space with a pair of washing machines and a single dryer. A startlingly bright bare bulb hangs in the middle of the room. One of the washers has a handwritten sign affixed with a strip of masking tape. _Out of order – managment._ School may not have been Dean's forte, but even he knows that's wrong.

He'd hoped the late hour would guarantee anonymity and an otherwise empty room, but it's just not been that kind of day. A rail-thin middle-aged woman is sloppily unloading the contents of the dryer into a faded blue plastic laundry basket. She appears hardly as a real human being, more a caricature. An inch or two of her emaciated midriff is visible between a wrinkled gray ribbed tank and shredded denim cutoffs. A lit cigarette rests precariously between her pale lips and a litter of smoked butts are strewn across the pock-marked concrete floor like confetti.

As Dean leans on the glass of the half-open door, he contemplates turning back to the room, living with the dirty clothing until their next stop. Maybe he can leave the reeking bag in the bushes outside just to keep from being cooped up with the cumulative rancid smell of the past few weeks, but the woman glances up.

"Don't be shy, handsome," she mumbles, cigarette bouncing between her lips as she speaks. "Washer's free." Her eyes narrow predatorily.

Acid roils in Dean's stomach. He bobs his head and takes the four steps into the room necessary to reach the working washer. He turns his back, squares up to the machine to conceal the state of the clothing he's unloading. He can feel her cougar-y eyes burning holes in his back and ass as he shoves down a handful of bloodstained shirts, rotates his head to confirm. "I'm a hunter," he says by way of explanation, his tone lifeless. "S'animal." He swallows. "Deer."

She's eyeing the sizeable spots of blood, some of it creature, some his own. Her tan bony hand swiftly removes the cigarette as she shakes her head, the look of disgust on her face a perfect representation of his current state of mind.

But he's not supposed to feel this way. He loves his life, loves the bond he has with his father, that he's a part of a world most people have no idea exists.

"That's adrenaline," Sam had said matter-of-factly, lip curled in that arrogant manner he'd taken to taking when his feathers were ruffled, but Dad wasn't home this particular time to indulge him. "You don't LOVE any of this. No sane person could. You're just an adrenaline junkie." _He's jealous,_ Dean would tell himself.

_"I'm a hunter."_ Words he used to take pride in, since he was, what, eight? Since he first took on the role of Dad's trusty, loyal sidekick, his Tonto. There for comic relief but also for reassurance, support. They were a team, not on equal footing but it was never the burden Sam made it out to be. He was happy to be and do whatever Dad needed, because they had the coolest Dad in the world.

_Like a superhero,_ he'd once told Sammy, as a young, naïve, utterly stupid boy.

He's watched enough movies, read enough comics as a kid. All superheroes have a dark side, and secrets, and most importantly, a villain. An archenemy whose very existence both threatens and validates the choices he makes.

If Dad is a hero, then he has an archenemy, too.

He sees it in every monster, every angry spirit. Now that he's grown up in the world a bit, Dean understands that Dad sees his nemesis in the mirror, too.

*****************************************************************************

Dean pounces on John the moment his father returns from an unspecified trip into town. "What the hell?" he demands, cell phone in hand. Not the most intelligent of questions, but the first that comes to mind. A row of empty bottles stands at attention on the counter, but that doesn't entirely inform the outburst.

John, who at least brought food back with him, quirks an unamused eyebrow at the line of bottles and lets the brown greasy-bottomed bag slide to the table. "Excuse me?"

This is already the most honest conversation they've had in weeks. Dean holds up his cell phone. _Exhibit A, Dad._ "Sam's number is disconnected."

John nods knowingly, as though he's been waiting for this confrontation. "And why exactly should I go on paying for it?" He goes about unpacking dinner, shaking his head in a frustrated way usually only brought about by Sam. "He's the one who pitched a fit and demanded we get the damn things in the first place, remember? And now he's too good to use it."

Dean is taken aback. Dad almost makes it sound like he's also tried calling Sammy. He's had such a cavalier, good riddance attitude. Even now, he can't just come out and tell Dean that he misses the kid just as much as he does. "That's not fair," is what slips out of Dean's mouth.

"No? How so?"

Dean doesn't have an answer that won't be immediately refuted and feels his ground falling away. "You should've told me, at least."

John coolly pops the top of a beer from a fresh six-pack and slides it across the table to Dean, adding the cap to the growing collection on the counter. "Tell me something. All these calls you've been making, your brother ever once pick up? Ever bother to call you back?"

He always knows. Dean rests a hip against the back of a chair, refusing to sit. He stares at the label on his bottle, picking at the corner of the paper. "That's not the point."

John opens his own beer and settles into a chair. He leans back, casual posture juxtaposed with his hostile tone. "And what is the point, Dean? When are you going to stop treating me like I'm the one who left him?"

As much as Dean hates to admit it, his father has a point. His stomach growls as John unwraps a massive bacon cheeseburger – diner takeout, not drive-thru – and he somewhat reluctantly slides into a chair. His father knows all of his weaknesses, and he gives in embarrassingly easy.

A new pattern is born as Dean concedes. It's just the two of them now, and he surrenders because John never will. An otherwise hostile moment repressed, one John better hope never comes back to bite the both of them in the ass.

John lifts his bottle. "Eat up and get some rest. We're on the road again first thing in the morning."

He feels lost. He's always been strong because that's what they needed him to be, Dad and Sammy. He's no longer relevant to what EITHER of them needs, and his role in this family is becoming fuzzier by the day. But he will fight for this family. Up until the moment when there's no one left but him.

Dean's gotten used to falling asleep to the sound of the police scanner. Crackles of static, radio beeps, and urgent calls to action. It startles him awake every couple of nights, at absurd hours. But no matter the time, his father is always there, chin in one hand, tumbler in the other, filled with the contents of whatever seemed appealing on the other side of the liquor store counter. Once or twice there's been a lingering scent of cigarettes, like he'd just stepped out for a smoke. An old habit, kicked once or twice already at the urging of his sons but, _whatever it takes,_ Dean thinks.

Every so often, something John hears will catch his attention, and Dean fully wakes in the morning to an otherwise empty room, a half-shot bottle of bourbon, gin, or tequila still open and coming to room temperature, sweating a ring onto the table next to the now-quiet scanner.

They eat takeout meals standing at the sink, and don't really speak to each other anymore. John doesn't put in the effort and Dean's given up trying. Sam obviously meant more than he ever thought possible. Maybe he and Dad only ever fought but at least that was something.

When they do talk, it's all shop. Sam hasn't come up as a topic of conversation in weeks, since Dean was last drunk enough to bring him up, and they've found a way to spend small blocks of time together in relative companionable comfort, in which Dean is almost tricked into thinking it's always been just the two of them. They spend a muggy afternoon in southern Indiana reorganizing the trunk into a more optimal arrangement. The stash of silver has been depleted for a few months and they're down to just a few clips, so it's time to find a pawn shop while they're cruising through Iowa. The longest, most in depth conversation they have in a month on any one subject is regarding spirit repellent.

John's always had an array of contacts scattered like buckshot across the country, and has managed to nab a couple of paying gigs since they left Abilene, usually families with small children and peckish poltergeists. Angry spooks aren't generally keen on standing idly by while a pair of hunters burn their bones and send them on into that bright beautiful light, and they've each spent their fair share of time playing decoy and running interference in small town graveyards while the other lights the fire. Iron has always been the most tried and true offense, and salt a much more effective defense. A well-placed shot can grant a hunter anywhere from five minutes to twenty, depending on the strength of the spirit. One only recently able to corporealize will take up to half an hour before gathering the strength to return. And never in Dean's experience hunting has a spirit ever crossed a salt line under its own power. But bullets run out, and a strong gust of wind or unfortunate scuffle of a boot breaks that salt line too easily and too often.

A spirit in Omaha, one of the paying jobs and tougher than they'd been led to believe, takes an iron shot through its chest and reanimates in a matter of seconds, flings John aside just as he's loosing a match into its shallow grave. This all happens before Dean, drawing from a tapped well after weeks of this, can react properly. The lit match thrown from John's grip catches a dry brush pile and they end up nearly igniting the whole damned cemetery.

John's sore and not happy, and Dean is somewhat passive aggressively punished that night, set down to another long night of weapons cleaning, the entire, freshly optimally organized cache from the trunk. His father lectures from across the room in a low, rough rumble with a stiff drink in his hand and an ice pack on his shoulder.

"You gotta be more careful, Dean. Eyes in the back of your head, aware of your surroundings at all times."

This is quite possibly the longest string of words his father has spoken to him since Sam left, so he pushes down the retort threatening to escape his mouth: _"And when exactly does all of the alcohol come into play?"_ Dean bites his lip and ejects a leftover cartridge from the shotgun. It rolls across the carpet to rest against a dented old salt can next to the oak bureau, the one from which his dad's been pouring protective lines when he thinks Dean's asleep.

"Gotta stay sharp, 'cause it's my ass on the line if you blink just a moment too long."

Dean wearily straightens from the bed and crosses the room. He stoops to recover the cartridge and his fingers brush the salt can. After a pause, he grabs that, as well, isn't at all surprised by how empty it feels. He crouches in the corner for a moment, studying the items in his hands. _Huh._ "Dad?"

John has his back to Dean, pouring a refill, right on the heels of his first drink. "Thing could've killed us both tonight."

"Dad – "

The glass thunks on the countertop. "I know you think you don't need to hear this, kid, but you – "

"DAD." Dean bounces on the balls of his feet, turning to face his father. He raises the cartridge, the salt, and his eyebrows.

John leans back against the counter, appraising Dean. He nods slowly. "Worth a shot, I guess."

"Pun intended?"

John smiles, the first real smile in what seems like a lifetime. He sips from his glass. "Pun intended."

***********************************************************************

They take test fires out back at an abandoned factory down the road from the motel, a part of town where the sound of gunfire isn't a rarity. The hard-packed rock salt explodes against the concrete walls in a much larger diameter than a lead shot, a pock-marked crater beneath the dissipating cloud of dust.

John inspects the marks left behind with a low whistle. "Can't stand too close. It'll get a piece of ya."

"Yes, sir," Dean agrees, collecting spent shells from the gravel.

"Was a good idea." John nods to himself, thoughtfully rubbing the coarse stubble on his chin. "A real good idea."

Dean swallows, wanting to fight back the grin that aims to take over his face, but his father's praise is almost all he's ever wanted, since he first picked up a shotgun. "Thanks."

"Let's go try it out."

They stay up for hours packing shotgun shells with rock salt from the trunk, and John sniffs out another haunting in the next state to take this idea of Dean's on a test run. It should be concerning how easily his father finds jobs, but it's so nice to feel useful and important to John, he doesn't pause to think about it, just packs up the car once again.

This one is found through the grapevine, a wealthy, elderly widow catching sight of her recently deceased husband in their estate home. Not a particularly violent entity, but not a living person anymore, so Dean figures it isn't REALLY cruel when they both blast the old coot into next Wednesday.

John even lets out a joyful whoop as the wrinkled spirit dissipates like a wisp of smoke. He sets the timer on his wristwatch. The shot buys them more than enough time to perform a quick but not hurried salt and burn of the bones before the dearly departed Mr. McGregor makes a reappearance.

"Won't all be so easy, I suspect. He was fresh, so to speak."

"Yes, sir."

For the entire affair Dean earns a bone-crushing thump on the back. A hug, by John Winchester standards. His exhausted, sore body causes him to wince, but he's no longer capable of anything but beaming under his father's approval.

They stock up on rock salt and take the next night off to properly celebrate the best idea Dean's had since dropping out of school. The celebration is short-lived, and anything but. Two rounds in, they sit awkwardly at the center of a loud and crowded pool hall paying more attention to their drinks than to each other.

For a brief moment, things between them had been like old times. More than father-son; a healthy camaraderie, the partnership that had always made Sam jealous, despite his many arguments to the contrary. But something is different, and maybe their relationship isn't what it should be without Sammy there to balance it out. That must be it, and not all of the secrecy, because Dean should be used to that by now.

They continue on, the silence found in that bar booth, heavy and uncomfortable and unfamiliar, riding shotgun. John is growing more distant by the day, obviously hiding things from Dean, to the point it's no longer worth being upset about. He's more short-tempered then stoic, snapping at Dean for minor infractions, things he's never given a rat's ass about before. Changing the setting on the A/C in the room, leaving a towel on the floor of the bathroom. Dean catches the date on a newspaper in the gas station and it starts to make sense.

This must be it, mid-August, the predetermined deadline for Sam to come back, if there was a sliver of a hope of a chance he was going to. Colleges are starting up, kids moving in, getting settled, and if Sammy hasn't caught up with them yet, he isn't going to.

The next night John goes out and gives Dean a look that says in no uncertain terms that he is not welcome, which is just as well because going to the bar with the old man isn't nearly as much as it used to be. He dutifully stays behind in the room watching infomercials for various cooking appliances and nursing a six-pack of tall boys, is halfway through his fourth beer when he's startled upright be the sound of someone trying to break into the room. John fumbling with the lock and key. He could help his father, maybe should, but history gives him a better than even chance of pissing off the man more than anything else.

Once successfully navigating the lock, John comes in just as drunk as expected, but quite a bit calmer than anticipated. Dean watches with a wary, suddenly sober eye as his father shrugs out of his coat and travels in not so much a straight line to the sink in the bathroom, where he splashes his face with cold water. He reaches to pull a hand towel from the thin bar on the wall and his hand smacks the edge of the sink when he doesn't find one there. Dean tenses on instinct.

John eyes go to the pile of dirty towels on the bathroom floor and finally meet Dean's in the mirror. "Where's your brother?"

It's so calm and normal, like nothing has happened, and Dean can't actually respond. He gapes, floundering for words like a fish out of water.

John comes out of the bathroom without turning out the light. He holds Dean's gaze as he roughly shakes the water from his hands. The motion is enough to knock him off-balance, which only serves to further infuriate him. He catches himself against the corner of the wall. "Where," he repeats, "is your brother?"

Dean struggles for the right answer another long moment before speaking, can't do much more with what he's got than to say pitifully, "He left."

"When's he gonna be back?"

"Dad, he…he took off weeks ago. Remember?" He probably shouldn't have added that last part, as John stares, more angry than confused. Dean remains silent as it starts to sink in.

John sniffs but doesn't break eye contact. "Well, maybe if your brother was here we'd have some clean towels."

He turns back to the bathroom, trying to leave it with the last words firmly in his back pocket, but Dean finally snaps. The lingering pain in his healing, constantly itchy face, the hole in his heart that his baby brother has left, the beers…it all helps. "Yeah, maybe if Sam was here."

John lays an ungentle palm against the doorframe as he faces Dean. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

Dean swallows. He understands in that instant; this is what Dad wants. Maybe what he needs. It's been weeks, frustration mounting, barely sharing words with each other and he needs a fight so badly he'll pick one with Dean. Dean could use a fight himself, but he's not sure he's up to it right now, doesn't want to do this with his father. "Nothing," he grits out. "I'll get some towels from the manager's office." It's an exercise in restraint, not giving into his father.

"Don't bother." John pats his face dry on a gray cotton t-shirt left crumpled at the foot of his bed, already on his way out the door.

"You just got back," Dean protests as his father stomps past him. "It's late."

Without so much as a look back, John closes the door in a calm, authoritative manner. Dean waits for the growl of the Impala's engine coming to life, leaning tensely against the dresser.

_And there he goes._ He turns and roughly kicks the waste basket. "Dammit, Sammy!"

The metal cylinder rebounds off of the thin wall, causing every crap piece of dusty décor to rattle and scatters the garbage from the can. Crumpled paper and empty beer cans spill across the short carpeting.

There is a returning pound of a fist on the wall from the next room, a muffled cry of "Keep it down!"

Dean's reflexes want him to go one room over and kick the shit out of the guy. He doesn't, because fighting is against the rules. There used to be a lot of rules.

No fighting, and that means you, Dean.

Keep the door closed at all times.

Don't let housekeeping in.

Never let Sammy out of your sight.

The last one is old, but it's the one Dean's thinking about now. Now that Sammy's out there on his own without anyone covering his six. How could it NOT be Dean's fault if something awful happens to his little brother?

_Because it's Dad's._

Dean tells himself these aren't really his thoughts, just his brain filling in Sam's dialogue in his absence.

He almost starts to believe it, too.

***************************************************************************

Things between them are noticeably different after that night. John now knows he can get a little fight from Dean when he really needs it, and after his initial resistance, Dean finds himself all too happy to oblige. They get into it bad one night in Maycomb, Illinois, zigging and zagging back across the country as the calls come in, without a pattern or a path to follow.

John stumbles in at 3AM, closing time, and Dean's had just enough, himself, to call him on it before he has a chance to self-edit. Especially after sitting through years of self-righteous lectures and bullshit about staying sharp and alert. "Don't you think you're getting a little old to be out drinking all night?"

John's lip curls. "Watch your tone, boy. You have no idea what you're talking about."

Dean is so goddamned sick of watching his tone, he retorts in a volume he's never before reached with his father. "You know what, Dad? Considering recent events maybe you're the one who needs to think about what you're saying and how you're saying it."

Fueled by anger and alcohol, he goes so far as to knock a chair to the floor. Embarrassed, he stomps out of the motel room for a little self-imposed but well-deserved time out. He stays out until dawn, walking the cracked and pothole-riddled streets, thinking about what he'll do if the car isn't there when he gets back.

It is, and Dean has no explanation for the way his heart sinks when he sees it. John is asleep, or is at least pretending to be, and the chair is still on the floor. He's broken the salt line opening the door, and has to squat there in the dark, silent room to reapply it, knowing the whole time his father is probably watching him.

In the morning, John acts like nothing happened. Dean refuses to give in, another first, and the chair is still lying on the floor when they hit the road two days later.

The guilt that weighs on him afterward is like a third companion, but things slow down after that.

**************************************************************************

Dean throws a chair to the floor in Maycomb and John almost pops him one for it. He's just drunk enough that for a moment, a blink, really, it's not Dean he sees across the room but Samuel, and the image nearly has him crossing the space between them and knocking some sense into him. He surges, takes a step forward before the room rights itself and he sees it's Dean with him instead. John drags a hand over his eyes, takes a long breath, and when he opens them he's alone in the room.

Dean's not the leaving kind, so there's no worry that he won't be back. Just taking a walk to clear his head, to give John the chance to do the same. Dean will give you space where Sam will disrespect it.

It's stuffy in the small motel room. The A/C unit, jammed into the window with duct tape and a prayer, clicks, sputters, and then gives out completely. The artificial blast of icy air is replaced with a thick, invisible cloud of stiflingly hot summer air, and John throws open the door, doesn't bother to close it behind him as he leans on the railing outside their room. He takes deep breath, drawing fresh air into his lungs, clearing his head and washing out the anger that spiked at the imagined sight of Sam. A scuffle of boot sole on cement snaps open his eyes, whips his head to the left.

A man leans against the vending machine two doors down, puffing a cigarette. He exhales a bluish plume of smoke, and John finishes sobering up pretty damn quickly. The man's wearing an overcoat despite the high heat of mid-summer. Keeping to the shadows, his face hidden from view. Unable to be identified, but there's no way to tamp down the eerie sense of familiarity that feels like dread wrapped in a bowling ball in John's stomach. Whoever this may be, his presence here, now, is no mere coincidence.

John squints, shoots a cursory glance around the otherwise empty parking lot. Dean isn't anywhere in sight, and he hopes it stays that way as he moves closer to the stranger. "Mind if I bum one?"

The tip of the cigarette glows orange from the shadows as the man takes a drag, looses another puff of smoke. "Not at all." A package is extended, a hand the only thing coming out of the shadows.

John trusts his instincts above all else, reinforces the suspicion this meeting is no chance encounter. He pulls a cigarette free and tosses back the crinkly plastic pack. He roots into his pocket, feels past the pack of cigs he's been poorly hiding from Dean for the lighter there.

He takes a drag and, after a moment's contemplation, another step forward. As anticipated, the stranger retreats, draws further into the shadowy corner.

Suspicions confirmed, John exhales deeply, rocks back on his heels and chuckles. "Can I help you, friend?" Nothing friendly to be taken from his tone. He moves his left hand casually to his hip, comforted by the feel of the pistol tucked at the small of his back.

"You packing there, John?"

He raises an eyebrow, lets his hand drift away from the spot. "You have to ask, you already know the answer."

The man laughs. "Your boy there's got a temper, doesn't he?"

John nods, squints, feeling his blood boiling under his skin. "I feel like I'd better warn you, he gets it from his daddy. And he didn't get it all."

"And I feel I'd better warn you, don't think that information your friend Cam passed on to you is as worthless as other hunts he's sent you on in the past."

"And how do you know anything about Cam, what information he's given to me, or what we've done in the past."

"Ah, the million dollar question." The man throws his smoking cigarette butt to the cement, grinds out of the burning tip with the toe of his boot. "And one, I fear, you may not learn to the answer to for quite some time."

"Then why are you hanging around outside my motel room?"

"Just keeping you on the right track."

He turns to walk away, keeping to the shadows. John flicks his own cigarette away into the parking lot and surges forward, brought to a halt by a raised hand.

"Think of the children, John."

"You're not going to touch my children."

"We're getting well past the point where you have any say what happens to those boys, and I think you know it. I think you know that's how you've gotten here."

John's hand feels out the grip of the gun in his waistband, just as a police cruiser glides to a gentle stop at the edge of the parking lot. He frowns, releases the gun and steps back a bit into the shadows, himself.

The man chuckles. "I'll be seeing you, John. You and your boys."

John turns back, and the man is gone.

**********************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter 4

The darkness of the room confuses Dean to the time of day when the phone rings. It's early afternoon, according to the peek he sneaks at his watch. It had been a late night on the job tracking a Wendigo through dense forest. Turned out not to be a Wendigo as much as it did a tiny black bear cub, but the night still pushed well past midnight. The fortieth late night in a row.

John is gruff for the short duration of the phone call, growling in a low volume most likely meaning his father believes Dean's slept through the ring. He can't make out any of it, and when John's soft mumbling comes to an end he assumes the call is finished.

His father is still and silent for a long moment, then Dean hears a faint clatter coming from across the room. Sneaky bastard was out of bed before Dean even noticed. He rolls over just as John comes out of the bathroom, zipping closed his shaving kit.

He pauses only when he sees Dean is awake, blinks just once. "Marcus Hicks says he may have caught wind of…something, in town."

John is doing a poor job of masking his concern over the words exchanged in this conversation. He's certainly in a rush for a tip about "something." Dean frowns. "Where? What is it?"

"Nothing solid. But it's something back in St. Louis." John sinks to the edge of his bed.

Places and dates are swirling together like watercolor paints as Dean's exhausted brain attempts a proper recall. "We were just in St. Louis, what, less than a week ago?"

"Yeah."

"Ghost?"

"Poltergeist," John confirms.

"S'it back?"

"I don't know, Dean."

Dean's gut is nagging, but he can't put his finger on why. It's not like John to leave a job unfinished, but maybe they didn't clean up quite as well as they'd thought before blowing out of Missouri. "What are you thinking?"

"I don't know, Dean." Almost impatiently, almost angry. He's not telling Dean something, and there's nothing _almost_ about that.

Dean has had this conversation with his father several times since he hit his late teens, since he dropped out of school and fully committed himself to hunting. Dad's always had a side agenda, researching the thing that killed Mom, and that's a fight he's always intended to take on solo. Dean's been involved in a lot of hunts, taken part in the killing of an array of nasty sons of bitches, and that's the way he's always wanted it. Wanting to assist and back up John, wanting to learn everything he could about everything they were hunting. But when it comes to Mom…that's a book, literal and metaphorical, that Dad slams closed, not even giving him or Sam a peek.

He can read his father pretty well, and his spidey-sense is tingling. He's also convinced his father would be on the road already if Dean hadn't been woken by the call. He'll be damned if he's left behind, concerned that may have been his father's intention.

Dean pulls himself fully upright and digs a calloused knuckle into his eye. "So when do we – "

"Right now."

Something that can't wait until morning. Can't be put on hold for sleep. The light between their heads snaps on suddenly, momentarily blinding Dean.

The other bed creaks as John heaves himself back toward the bathroom. "Pack. We leave in five minutes. If you're not in the car in five minutes, I will leave without you."

It sounds like a challenge, and Dean hustles to finagle a fresh t-shirt and clean-enough pair of jeans from his bag, replacing them with last night's muddy clothes, discarded in a pile at the foot of the bed. He pulls on his boots without tying the laces and switches places with his father as John hurries back into the main room.

They drop into the car simultaneously and John glances over. He nods, small and tight, its meaning a mystery to Dean. They hit the interstate right at afternoon rush hour, crawling at a snail's pace through three-lane blockage. John is as frustrated as Dean has ever seen him, cursing and pounding on the steering wheel.

If Dean wasn't in such a state of perpetual exhaustion he might take the time to appreciate the stunning sunset as they pull off the interstate into the heart of the city. The long-lost little boy in him straightens as they pass Busch Stadium. Always been a baseball fan.

The Impala rumbles into the lot of the first motel off of the exit ramp. Dean turns to his father with a frown.

John won't face him, stares straight ahead as the Impala idles in a parking stall outside of the manager's office. "I wanna meet Marcus alone. He's…jumpy."

Dean is pretty sure he's met Marcus. Pretty sure Marcus is a fellow ex-Marine and built like a house, maybe rough around the edges and been through a world of shit but certainly not jumpy. And whatever is going on in town, it's serious enough to have his dad spooked. John's seemed spooked for days but this look in his eyes takes the cake. Hell, no. He should be there. This is the kind of thing he's been working towards his entire life. He's proved himself time and again, all so that he wouldn't be benched when it really counts. "Dad – "

John roughly shifts the car into park. "This isn't up for discussion, Dean." He holds out one of the credit cards. "Get a room and I'll hook up with you in a few hours."

Dean clenches his jaw. He doesn't like the tone of his father's voice or the look in his eyes. He yanks the card from his father's hand and slams out of the car. The Impala squeals out of the parking lot and out of sight.

He does as he's told and gets a room, asks for extra towels and since they don't have an in-house facility, the location of the nearest laundromat, because he doesn't know any other way. He's too pissed to be tired now, too wired from the thought of John across town.

They aren't exactly ever looking for anything in particular, but the idea of the nameless, faceless something that ruined their lives is always hanging over their heads. John's obsession with finding the thing that killed their mother is what ultimately drove Sam away, what was at the heart of every argument. All that mattered, all that does still, and every job, every phone call that doesn't bring them closer to discovering the truth is a waste of time to his father. It's the only kind of tip that gets his father moving like this.

Even when they were young boys he would leave them without hesitation on a whim, for as long as was necessary, and would return to them furious and sullen for days when it didn't pan out. And it never did.

But things are supposed to be different now; he stood next to his father as Sam shouted insults and obscenities. He's left girls behind without so much as explanations, he left school, he's dedicated his all, given everything he has to his father's cause. He's not supposed to be left behind. He's answered his own question, and the realization hits him with a startling finality and the brute force of a barreling freight train: this is, as it has always been, his father's fight.

Dean sinks heavily onto one of the faded floral duvets only long enough to glimpse his reflection in the floor-length mirror across the room. He looks old, tired, and bruised. Exactly the way Sam always told him he would if he followed Dad down this road. That's not a train of thought he wants to hop onto right now, and he'll be damned if he's going to sit around feeling sorry for himself. A couple of cold beers sound amazing at the moment. Maybe his father will kill this goddamned thing, whatever it may be, and leave town for the next one in the queue, forgetting all about him.

He wants to forget that thought and maybe forget himself for a while, turns up the collar of his jacket and treks a few blocks through light drizzle to a seedy-looking biker bar. It's still relatively early in the evening, and he's alone at the counter, quickly makes his way through a tall draft beer and two shots of Jack. He's been drinking for years, but always favored a beer over the liquor his father poured himself. This far into the game, he figures, _why the hell not?_ The exhaustion and doubt he was feeling is slowly becoming a warm and content sensation. A familiar, heavy hand falls on his shoulder, and it's now feeling like those shots were a goddamn _fantastic_ idea.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" his father growls, his breath a hot, angry blast in his ear.

"Having a drink. I would think you'd recognize it," Dean drawls, emboldened by the liquor. He sips lazily from his second beer, not meeting John's eyes. He glances at his watch, surprised to see that more than an hour has passed since he sat down.

"We're on a job." Through gritted teeth, the pressure on Dean's shoulder increasing to the point of discomfort.

Dean jerks away from the hand. "No, Dad, you're on a job. I was just supposed to get a room at the motel, and now I'm celebrating my success," he says dryly, realizing John isn't alone. There's going to be hell to pay for this later. Not just for what he's saying but for saying it in front of someone his father has talked up as much as Marcus. Someone he clearly respects. Dean blinks, grabs the wheel with both hands and steers the moment elsewhere. "Tip didn't pan out?"

John's disappointment and annoyance are palpable. Behind him is Marcus, a tall man Dean vaguely remembers. He's husky with tanned skin and unruly hair, a full beard. His dark eyes are lined with crow's feet, and they narrow at Dean, looking just as pissed as John.

"Trail's cold," John says, can't seem to help himself from shooting an irritated glance at his bearlike friend. "Son of a bitch is still in town, though, somewhere."

Dean's given no more details than that. The son of a bitch in question could be anything from Godzilla to a unicorn. He straightens on the stool and sniffs. "You need me?"

"I need you safe." There's something off here, something in his father's shifty eyes, darting all over the crowded bar. "Stay here. We're gonna get a booth in back and review Marcus' notes."

Dean nods halfheartedly and turns back to the bar.

John grabs his arm forcefully but not painfully, whips Dean back to face him with such vigor he nearly comes right off of his stool. "I mean it," he says seriously. "Don't leave this bar."

Dean frowns and nods, grips the edge of the counter to steady himself. "Yeah, sure."

Marcus remains stoic and silent as John gestures to the back of the bar with his leather-bound journal. "S'where we'll be." The two men move away, and Dean motions for the bartender to bring him another shot.

By the time the drink arrives he's no longer alone at the counter. A girl, bottle-blonde and maybe his age, maybe a touch older, appears and pulls herself onto the stool right next to him. Her top is low-cut, leaving little to the imagination, and her legs go all the way down to the floor.

She's just as quickly appraising her new bar buddy, looking Dean up and down and grinning appreciatively. "What brings you in?" she asks by way of greeting, drawing her hair over one shoulder and leaning on an elbow.

Dean shoots a glance at the corner booth in back where his father and Marcus are already deep in conversation, pouring over the contents of the journal. Girls love guys with daddy issues. Dean's been trying to get Sammy to play that angle since he realized a nice set of boobs wasn't going to bite him. "My dad."

She follows his gaze, makes a face, and her eyelashes are a mile-long. "Looks a little rough. Nasty drunk?"

Dean shakes his head, wags a finger of the hand holding his glass for good measure. John Winchester might not be a saint by anyone's standards, but that's never been an impression he's been comfortable with people having. "Just a quiet one."

The bartender smiles and sets a bottled beer on the counter in front of her and Dean raises his eyebrows. Not only does she seem to be a regular in this dive but the brew is a decent one; most girls that look like she does wouldn't bother with anything more than a low-cal, low-carb bottle of piss water, if bothering with a beer at all.

She plays her fingers along the neck of the brown bottle and shifts on her stool, pressing a bare tan knee against his left thigh. "And what kind of drunk are you?"

Dean's eyes are fixated on the spot where their legs are touching. "The kind that usually regrets his decisions in the morning," he answers honestly.

She leans in, bats those long lashes, and he's as good as a fly caught in a web. "What if I can promise you won't regret anything?"

Dean's eyes once again tick over to where his father is still in heated conversation, doesn't even seem to remember Dean is here. "I don't even know your name," he drawls. "And I'm not supposed to leave this bar."

"Well, I don't think either of those things in a problem. Do you?"

Dean raises his eyebrows and grins lazily. He knocks back one last shot. If John had raised his eyes to his son just once, Dean wouldn't follow her but he does, down the narrow hall away from the counter to the otherwise empty men's room.

*****************************************************************************

"I gotta tell ya, John, you look like shit. Same goes for that boy of yours." The bench creaks under the weight of Marcus as he shifts in the booth.

John looks up from the smudged pages of his journal, raises his eyebrows. "Always a pleasure, Hicks."

Marcus brings a glass of cheap bourbon to his lips. "I'm just saying. It's well-past time you called in an extra set of hands."

"You called me."

"I'm just saying."

"Yeah."

Marcus shakes his head. "You talk to Ellen lately?"

John jerks his head at the mention of her, lowers his eyes and doesn't answer his friend. There are some closed doors that no good can come from opening again. Ellen Harvelle's is one of them.

"It's been five years, John. She doesn't blame you. You've gotta stop blaming yourself."

"Would you?"

Marcus narrows his eyes and relents with a sigh. "'Sides, I meant have you talked to her about this demon? You know she hears everything from everyone who passes through that bar of hers."

He's hell-bent on focusing on ANYTHING else, and a thought manifests in John's head. He cocks his head, squints at his old friend. "Who told you to call me?"

"What're you talking about?"

"Why'd you bring this to me? There's a handful of guys I know, good hunters, who are better versed in possessions."

"Some of those men may think otherwise, but I trust you, John. Lord help me."

John smiles sadly and salutes Marcus with his glass, thinking of Bill Harvelle. "Well, you know where trustin' me tends to get folks." _Dead._

Marcus shakes his head. "I don't mean to wallow in a bar and rehash old mistakes. Somethin's going down, but John, I ain't the one best-suited to help you with all this. You know someone who WOULD know somethin' about trackin' demons?"

John sighs. "The thought had occurred to me."

"Then why're you sittin' here with me? Why ain't you eating pavement in the direction of South Dakota?"

"The boys have a relationship with Singer. He'd tell Dean about…" He gestures to the spread on the table, the weather and police reports, the well-marked map of demonic omens.

"That a problem? The way I hear it, you've raised a damn good hunter, there. And besides, don't you think he deserves to know what's going on?"

Something vibrates at his hip, and John retrieves the cell phone. He couldn't have asked for better timing. He frowns at the screen and makes no move to answer the call. _Private caller._

Marcus frowns at John, motioning to the waitress for another round. "You screening calls?"

"Always. S'not the problem." John spins the phone so Marcus can read the screen before bringing the cell to his ear. "Yeah?"

_"I thought I told you to keep Sam close."_

"No, you didn't. And how the hell do you know anything about my son?"

Marcus rotates in the booth, glancing to where Dean is planted at the bar with a pretty blonde, before turning back with a furrowed brow.

_"I know a lot about both of your sons. I know Sam choose higher education over walking in your footsteps, probably extending his life by fifty or sixty years, and I know Dean has a thing for pretty blondes in short skirts."_

Right or wrong, something about the specificity of the son of a bitch's observation tightens John's throat. He grips the phone, doesn't speak.

_"You there, John?"_ Almost amused.

Marcus leans in, his features, usually rough as a rockface, are softened with obvious concern.

John raises his eyes to the bar, a crease deepening between his eyes. The phone falls away from his ear. "Where's Dean?"

**********************************************************************

It wouldn't have been his first ill-notioned romp in a barroom bathroom stall, but it will certainly be his last, he makes that promise to himself right now. John Winchester is a more than capable hunter, can very nearly sniff out any one of many varieties of beastie from a crowd, or a crowded room as it were. Very nearly. Dean is a pathetic amateur next to his father, hadn't had a clue until the bitch pulled the knife. _Don't know where she had room to hide the friggin' thing anyway._

She'd taken the lead as soon as he'd flipped the lock, pressed tightly up against Dean and kissed him hungrily, flush against the wall. He wasn't paying attention to much of anything else before the flash of fire in his side as she pulled away. She smiled, blinked, and her eyes were obsidian orbs. A demon, clearly.

Dean knows JACK about demons. Besides the eyes, he knows they can be exorcised but not killed, and hasn't ever been faced with one before. Most importantly, he's never had to handle anything like this without his father leading the charge.

_Last fucking time I fall for this shit,_ Dean thinks, struggling to pull himself upright, right hand slipping, leaving bright, bloody smears on the white pedestal sink. The fingers of his left hand fumble at his side, where the sharp metal of her weapon tagged him along the curve of his ribcage. He'd be dead if she intended it, very nearly caught with his pants literally down, but it wasn't meant to be a kill strike; the wound is not shallow but not immediately critical. He's been hurt badly enough to know the difference. He doesn't know what's about to happen, but he doesn't just yet think he's going to die in this dirty bathroom.

This bitch doesn't appear to be in any hurry to finish him off. She leans back casually against the wall, laughing to herself as she nonchalantly wipes the blade on the sleeve of her jacket, leaving a swipe of Dean's blood on the dark denim. With the black eyes and unflattering lighting, she's not looking nearly as attractive as she was just moments before. She eerily, casually shrugs out of the jacket one arm at a time, transferring control of the knife from one hand to the other. It's as big as the fucking Bowie he keeps under his pillow, doesn't know where in the hell she could have been hiding it. _Jackass._ Once removed, she crams the coat into the trash can by the door. There's a pounding behind her, the locked door bucking in its frame. _Dad._

Dean frowns, straightens as much as the pain in his side will allow. He's a fighter, and he's not going to stand here and wait for her to decide to stick him again. He lunges at her blindly, without any real plan in the attack. She sidesteps his clumsy attempt easily, grabs the lapels of his coat and slams him bodily against the sink. His back connects first, and as gravity drags him down his head snaps back against a corner of porcelain. Lights pop in his field of vision and he crumbles, dazed, spent, and really wishing when he'd left the motel room he'd thought to bring a gun, a knife, SOMETHING. _Never again._

"This is really kind of pathetic. The way they talk you Winchesters up downstairs, I expected more." She continues to laugh, a decidedly unattractive cackle. She's toying with him, having fun.

She's not laughing long, that's for damn sure. John splinters the door away from the jamb, tearing the lock free from the wall and slams into the bathroom. Without breaking stride he throws the bitch into the mirror over the sink. Glass explodes outward, raining over Dean, still curled dumbly on his side on the grimy floor.

She stands and shakes glass from her hair, the impact barely slowing her down. "Hope you didn't give that temper to your boys, John," she says with a pout. "Sammy seemed so nice."

There's a struggle happening above him, bodies converging and blows being thrown, three voices but Dean can't focus on any one of them long enough to know what anyone's saying anymore. He knows he's lying in a puddle of water, but the water is warm, and thick. He's clinging to consciousness but is starting to slip. The already dimly lit room is fading around the edges, and he blinks hard, feeling the pull, the need to close his eyes.

"No!" his father shouts suddenly, clear as a bell, and a body falls heavily to the floor in front of Dean.

The pretty blonde girl, on her side only inches away from him, her black eyes shining and a trickle of dark blood at the corner of her thick red lips. She smiles at Dean, lips contorted into an evil grin, then her expression changes, mouth falling open. Thick black smoke escapes in a rush as the demon exits her body.

The girl's now icy blue eyes lock on Dean's, wide and confused and afraid, and flutter closed. Only a few seconds have passed but it feels like hours as he stares, willing her eyes to open again.

"Damn it." Large hands fumble, rolling the girl to her side as Dean's vision blurs.

He cries out as John suddenly hauls him up from the floor, his surroundings snapping back into focus. The small bathroom is a battlefield laid to waste in mere minutes, shattered glass and water bursting from a broken faucet. His father swings him around and Dean sees the room in focus, the way the demon left the three men in a very suspicious circumstance. Next to her prone form is a second, smaller blood pool in a strange crescent shape. Dean frowns, connecting all of the dots. His father guides him quickly though not ungently out of the bathroom, where Marcus is there propping open the broken door.

"The girl?" John asks briskly as they pass, straight out of the alleyway delivery entrance at the end of the hall. Classic rock music blares loudly from the bar, something Dean figures should probably be familiar, and loud enough to have covered the sounds of the entire ordeal.

"She's gone," Marcus answers gravely. "Thing killed her."

They both sound much too business-like, and Dean wants to scream at the both of them.

"Son of a bitch." John adjusts his hold, pulling on Dean's arm draped over his shoulder.

He almost does scream then, bites his lips and fists his hand in his father's flannel shirt.

John keeps shaking his head as he hurries to load Dean into the Impala, strangely parked closer to the back of the bar than the front. He's muttering to himself. "Rookie move, Dean-o. Bush league. Trustin' a random girl in a bar."

Dean tries to reassure him that trust had nothing to do with it, starts to laugh but the piercing pain in his side and the steady throb in his head team up to put a quick stop to that.

His father deposits him onto his good side on the backseat, helps Dean curl his legs as gently as he can manage quickly, and stares down at him, definitely not laughing. He fishes out a clean shirt from his bag, which never made it out of the car when he dumped Dean back at that motel, and presses it to his side, holds his hands there around the fabric for a moment until he's satisfied Dean can keep the pressure on himself. John puts a rough hand on the side of Dean's face before throwing himself into the driver's seat.

"She said something…about Sam," Dean huffs out, trying to level up on an elbow but giving up quickly. His head feels about as heavy as a house.

"Keep pressure on that. I'll getcha sewn up soon's I can." He doesn't acknowledge what Dean said, and won't meet his eyes in the rearview.

Dean rolls his head against the bench seat and swallows roughly, panicking at John's lack of response. "Dad," he says louder. "Why did she say something about Sam?"

"I heard it, Dean. I heard." John rubs a hand roughly over his face. "I don't know why, but there's nothin' I can do until you're patched up and safe."

"I'm fine." Dean straightens from his slumped position in the seat and nearly blacks out. He's forced to rest his head back until the spots clear.

"Yeah, kid, you look it."

"Dad – what's going on? It was a demon, right?" _Did he know?_ "Is that what Marcus…" It's not really an issue, because his strength is tapped halfway through his question. He collapses against the stiff leather, limp hands drifting away from the wound as his eyes fall closed.

**************************************************************************

"Hope you didn't give that temper to your boys, John. Sammy seemed so sweet."

The air goes out of the room, and John can't see anything beyond the hell behind those black eyes. Marcus frowns, his eyes flashing down to Dean on the floor, still vainly struggling to get his feet under him but dazed and bleeding a concerning but not life-threatening amount. "What's she yapping about, John?"

John doesn't answer, makes the decision to finish her off before getting Dean out of there, and steps forward as she's still brushing glass from her clothes, backhands her into the sink. She hits the porcelain hard enough to knock the faucet loose, and water shoots from the sink.

She laughs as she slumps to the floor, spits a mouthful of blood and one tooth to the tiled floor. She props herself up on her hands, preparing to stand, and John stomps on one, drawing out a _crunch_ and a scream. "Who are you?" he demands.

Marcus lunges, grabs him by the upper arm. "John, stop."

John violently shrugs him off and whips a pistol from the small of his back, levels it calmly at the girl. "You wanna count how many times I'm gonna ask? Because it's not gonna happen again."

She looks up at him with a grin, revealing bloodstained teeth.

John's eyes narrow as he takes aim between her black eyes. "Give me a reason to do it."

She laughs, jerks her head in Dean's direction. "I thought I already had, John."

John's pulling the trigger when Marcus grabs his arm, drags it down, redirecting his aim harmlessly to the floor. He manages to keep from squeezing the shot off, whirls angrily to his friend.

"There's a demon in there, John," Marcus says, a bit too calmly, considering the circumstances. "S'just gonna be a dead girl if you shoot her."

John swallows, looks back at the girl. "Will it hurt the demon?"

"What?"

John's head bobs as he pulls back the hammer once more, aims it calmly at the girl's exposed thigh. "If I shoot her? Will the demon feel it?"

"John…"

His attention is drawn back to the girl as she pushes into a seated position. She's found her knife, the one that hurt his boy, and fists the hilt tightly in her unbroken hand, intention painted clearly across her face. John rushes forward, but he's just not fast enough. "No!"

He's not positive he would have pulled the trigger if the demon didn't choose that moment to escape its host and the room. He's not positive he wouldn't have, either. The knife twirls in her hand and cuts easily through clothing and flesh when she plunges it into her own chest, and blood is already bubbling from her lips as she collapses to the floor next to Dean. "Damn it."

There's nothing that John can do for her now, his priority had to be getting Dean out of there and patched up. "The girl?" he asks Marcus, working on pulling Dean up from the dirty floor. _Come on, kiddo, help me out a little._ But Dean's not up to helping, cries out as John pulls him to his feet.

Marcus straightens from his crouch beside the blonde, pulls his fingers away from her throat and shakes his head solemnly. "She's gone. Thing killed her." He moves to hold the door open for the two of them to get the hell out.

But John's frozen. He's gotten Dean upright and finds himself frightened and appalled by the blood pool that had been trapped under his son. They're going to be leaving a dead girl behind in the same room as Dean's DNA, and for a moment John can't move.

Marcus lays a hand on John's elbow, and he turns to him. "I'll take care of it, John. Just get Dean taken care of."

John nods and moves down the hall without a word. He kicks open the delivery entrance there in back and drags Dean to the car as gently as he can while also doing so urgently. He gets Dean situated in the back with something clean to put pressure on the wound, holds his own shaking hands over Dean's trembling ones for long enough to be comforted his boy can hold it there.

This was a bad idea from the jump, poorly executed, and they're getting the hell out of Dodge. It's his own fault for dragging Dean along, but damn if he didn't tell the kid to stay in the room. He keeps shooting glances at his son in the mirror. He's fading in and out, pale with dark circles under his eyes, smears of blood on his neck and jacket. Not great but not dying. Kid's tough, but he's showing all the signs of a concussion from that nasty crack to the head, so every time his eyes droop and his head rolls, John barks at him.

"Hey! Dean, remember this song?" And cranks the radio, drowning out his worries about Sam with guitar riffs and drum beats. After thirty minutes, though, Dean's head rolls and doesn't come back up when John whoops, yells, or honks the horn. _Damn it._

He grabs a motel room at the very next exit and maneuvers Dean through the doorway, floppy limbs and pale face and John's heart is going a mile a minute. He was yelping before but now his son barely makes a sound as John lets him fall as gently as possible to the spread of the bed closest to the door. His head lolls to the side, mouth open, eyes gazing hooded and unfocused at the curtains pulled closed across the window.

"S'a demon," he mutters. "S'gonna come for us."

"Not tonight, it's not, bud," John says gently. This stunt has all but confirmed the demonic theories. Maybe Cam knows what he's talking about, and maybe Marcus was right, too, and it's well-past time he should bring in Singer on this one.

"How'd she – " Dean's question is cut off by a grunt as John prods the wound. "How'd she know your name?"

_Now that's a good question._ "I've pissed off a lot of people. Maybe not all of them were people."

"Demons."

John doesn't respond, just works away at the gash and Dean still him, grabs his arm with a white, shaking hand. "Dad?"

"Maybe," John relents.

There's fear in Dean's eyes, uncertainty. A demon is not a common hunt, nothing Dean's had to deal with before, and rarely ends well. That first failed exorcism that left him in traction and stole Dean's high school diploma.

"She said somethin' about Sam."

Sammy is the reason John needs to get Dean patched up quick. _"Sammy seemed so sweet."_ Could mean nothing. Could mean everything. Could be they've got someone out there with him now. Or it could be bullshit meant only to get in his head, under his fingernails, throw him off of his game, like this attack on Dean. Maybe. Maybe he was just getting too close and they want him off their trail. And they will fail. John will make damned sure about that. First he has to make sure his boys are safe.

He pats Dean's cheek. "Hey, bud. Look at me a sec." John rummages through the bag he's tossed at the foot of the bed, coming up with their weighty and well-used first aid kit. "Any other day I'd be lettin' a real doctor do this. Tonight, you're gonna have to settle for me."

Dean's eyes are glassy, not really seeing him. His white hands hold John's shirt to his side without any real pressure behind it. The fabric is damp, sticky with blood, slowly staining his fingers. John swallows thickly and pulls Dean's hands away, gently lifts the hem of his shirt. It pulls away from the congealing blood with a soft, sickening sucking sound that leaves both of them hissing.

Dean's hands hang limply at half-mast for a moment before flopping heavily to his sides. The knife wound is narrow, and not as deep as he'd feared, and John breathes a sigh of relief. "Well, now, that's hardly worse than a paper cut," he drawls, placing a clean square of gauze over the deepest part, just below the curve of Dean's lowermost rib bone. A hollow feeling takes hold of his insides, seeing the array of bruises coloring his son's torso. Not all from tonight, but days olds, weeks old. He's damn near beat to hell.

Still fading in and out, Dean makes a sound that's almost a laugh, and John smiles, hearing it. He cleans the wound and applies a few stitches to close that deeper section, as gently as his large, rough hands will allow. He takes his time sewing and does his best to gauge the severity of Dean's head injury. He wants to be on the road as soon as possible, feels a knot in the pit of his stomach at the thought of Sam so far away, unprotected and unaware. But he won't sacrifice one son for the safety of the other. Dean's got a hell of a goose egg in back and his pupils are sluggish but reactive, and though his complexion remains alarmingly pale, the bleeding had stopped some time ago.

John tapes another square of clean gauze over the tight line of stitches he's sewn into Dean's skin and sits next to his son for a moment or two, watching him sleep, relieved to see his features have somewhat relaxed. He'd given Dean a hard time back at the bar, and there is another discussion to be had when he's feeling better, but he can't really fault the kid for skulking off with an attractive girl who'd seemed interested. Since Sammy took off he's been battling his own feelings of loneliness and inadequacy, and there's also a way to look at this as entirely his fault. He should have told Dean what was out there, about the calls and the strange man outside their room in Maycomb. He can only assume now the man was also a demon, that everything that's transpired is somehow connected.

He scribbles out a note on the motel notepad and sets the pad, a glass of tap water and bottle of mild pain relievers, Dean's cell, and all of the cash he pulls from his pockets on the table next to Dean's head.

John hesitates in the doorway but only for a moment. Dean is tough, one of the strongest people he's ever known, and that's something else he inherited from Mary because he certainly didn't get it from John. Dean bounces back like a rubber band, and he'll understand why his father isn't there when he wakes up. Sam is two thousand miles away, more than a day's drive, without a care in the world with no idea something evil could come aknockin' at any moment.

He calls Marcus before he hits the interstate.

_"You goin' after it?"_

"Wouldn't know where to start." The depth of truth in the admission has John thumping a frustrated palm against the steering wheel. _Damn it._ "Gonna check in on Sam. Can you…can you look in on Dean?"

_"Yeah, John. 'Course. Kid able to tell you anything more about her?"_

"No."

_"He remember?"_

"He remembers it now."

Marcus picks up on the implications. _"John…"_

"Just look in on my boy, Marcus. Please. And don't…if he doesn't remember, don't tell him."

There's a long, silent pause, in which John knows the big man's mind is anything but silent.

_"Where's he at?"_

John gives him the motel's name and address, then with an unwavering eye on the mirrors for a tail, he starts trying Dean's cell somewhere around Lincoln, Nebraska, but doesn't get an answer until Denver, his heart skipping guiltily the entire time.

***********************************************************************

Dean wakes slowly, painfully, with a dry mouth and heavy eyelids, limbs feeling unattached and floaty. He swallows a few times, making sure he isn't going to vomit. He won't really know for certain until he stands, which isn't really a problem because it isn't really a possibility. But at the same time, if the pressure in his bladder is any indication, he's been out for a while and needs to be dragging himself in that direction sooner, not later.

No single specific recollection is fighting its way to the forefront from the conflagration of images, places, and faces swarming in his mind. He knows he's hurt, knows it's serious enough, but couldn't say how he got this way. He remembers Dad, a bar, a girl, and…Sammy? While he's thinking he forgets himself long enough to attempt to sit up and the nauseating tug in his side, the pain that lances through his head, quickly brings him back. His hands tighten into fists as he rides out the wave, fingernails biting into his palms.

There was a girl. Oh, fuck yeah, there was a girl. Stuck him before he could stick her, so to speak. Dean's fingers cautiously probe the ground zero of pain while he catches his breath. There's not much to feel out on the surface; sticky edges of medical tape and soft, damp gauze. _Ow._

"Da – " Dean tries, though little more than a pathetic puff of air leaves his chapped lips. "Dad?" he croaks weakly on his second attempt. His own voice echoes in his head, bouncing around long after he's let the word loose.

The room has a noticeably unfamiliar feel to it. He's done the unconsciously transported thing enough to know when he's been moved, and this is a different room than the one in St. Louis, dim but not dark. The curtains are pulled closed but there's a hint of sunlight peeking around the edges. The room is silent but for the hum of the air conditioner. He's alone.

Keeping a hand pressed to the gauze at his side, Dean moves his head to the right, blinking at the alarm clock in front of his face until it comes into focus. Apparently it's early afternoon, though he couldn't say of which day or how many days may have passed. There's a small, boxy object in front of the clock, and Dean's slowly exploring fingers discover his cell phone and a slip of paper beneath it. It takes longer than he will ever admit to work the phone open, and when he manages it the brightness of the screen stabs his eyes. He squints, and eventually makes out the text of the tiny letters on the screen: _five missed calls._ All from his father. He's touched.

The phone rings while Dean's holding it and he nearly drops the damned thing. He shakily brings the phone to his ear. "Dad?"

_"Hey, kiddo. S'good to hear your voice."_ His father sounds strange, not nearly as rough as usual, a little manic, high-pitched.

"Where…" is all Dean can manage, before his strength is tapped. Light-headed, with limbs feeling heavy, it's all he can do to keep his grip on the phone.

_"Just had to take care of some business. I'll be back before you know it. How you feelin'?"_

"Alive. Dad, what…what happened?"

There's a pause, and Dean feels hot tears welling unbidden in his eyes. He's out of control, in unfamiliar territory, in a lot of pain and he's never been alone like this before, never been without a helping hand. He doesn't want to be here alone. The too-cold motel room A/C whispers uncomfortably across the exposed skin of his chest like a swarm of tiny ants he can't brush away.

_"I'll catch ya up as soon as I make my way back, I promise."_

"Where are you?"

_"It's important, Dean. You know…I would be there otherwise. Get your strength back, and I'll check in with you in a bit. I'll be back by tomorrow night."_

Tomorrow night. Dean's heart sinks, as if there's any place lower for it to go. "Yeah, okay."

_"You'll be okay, Dean."_

"Uh huh."

_"Tomorrow night, kid, I swear it. Take it easy 'til then. Marcus is gonna check on ya, drop off your bag, and…and I left a list of local numbers if you need something before I can get there."_

_Like food?_ "Mm hmm."

_"I'll check in soon."_

Dean lets the phone fall to the mattress next to his head. The little strength he woke with is gone, and the only thing that currently matters is whether or not he can make it to the bathroom to take that leak.

He falls asleep before he decides.

*************************************************************************

There are a dozen ways this could go sideways, and he's aware of every single one.

John parks the car at the curb outside a brick one-story middle school, wincing at the high-pitched spin of metal against concrete when he pulls too close. _Sorry, 'ol girl._

A group of girls skips down the steps in a giggling, hair-twirling pack, and three boys follow them out. One bumps another with his elbow, points out the Impala to his friends. The skinny blond boys nods, waves the other boys on and stops to bend and tie his shoe.

When the other children have moved down the sidewalk the boy straightens, searches around the area outside the school until he spots John on the bench. John would swear his narrow shoulders fall when their eyes meet. He grips the straps of his backpack and stalks over. He stops a good distance away, refuses to sit next to his father.

John offers the closest to a smile he can manage, given the circumstances. "You move onto to liking girls yet, instead of thinking they're gross?"

"I guess."

He jerks his head back in the direction of the dispersing children. "You like one of those girls?"

The boy looks back to where the other kids are walking off, talking and laughing. "Yeah. And one day I'm going to accidentally get her pregnant and spend one day a year with her and the baby because I feel guilty about it."

_Ouch._ His boys do get their smart mouths young. "Sit down a minute." John pats the rough wooden surface of the bench and Adam collapses next to him with an exaggerated pre-teen sigh that sounds too familiar. He hugs the railing, careful not to get too close to his father. John leans back, stretches his legs out in front of him.

"You missed my birthday."

"I know I did, kid. I'm sorry about that."

Adam kicks up a cloud of dirt with his sneaker, stares at the ground. "Mom said I'm not supposed to talk to you anymore."

John nods. "I figured as much. Called the house yesterday to talk to you and she hung up on me." He looks Adam up and down. "You look just like…" _Your brothers._ "Your mother," he finishes lamely. "How is she?"

"My mom? Your…whatever."

He and Sam would be great friends. John's needs never come into play, only theirs. "There's no circumstance I could see us working out, Adam."

Adam clenches his jaw, nods. They've had this conversation before, about fourteen months before, to be exact. And twelve months before that. "Are you here to take me to a game?"

"I can't right now. I've got…I brought you a present, though." John digs deep into the pocket of his leather coat, wrestles out the baseball mitt.

Adam takes the mitt, wrinkles his nose. "It's old."

"It was mine. But I don't have any use for it anymore. Think you could hang onto it for me?"

Every little boy loves a baseball mitt, at least every little boy of John's, and Adam nods, jams his hand into the glove, tests the worn leather.

John smiles, leans back and throws an arm over the back of the bench. He's broken the ice, can ask the questions he needs to now. "You doin' okay in school?"

"Yeah. It's stupid, though."

John jerks his head back toward the school building. "Havin' any trouble with any of the kids there?"

"No, they're okay."

"What about your teachers?"

"Mrs. Bradford gives us a lot of dumb reading assignments, but she's okay, I guess."

John nods, leans forward and clasps his hands between his knees. "You ever had anyone come up to you like this while you were out at school or the park?"

"Huh?"

"Ever had a stranger ask you a lot about yourself, or your mom?" He winces. "Or me?"

Adam looks confused, shakes his head.

John nods, relief spreading through him like sunshine. "Okay. Good."

"What's going on?"

"Nothing, kid."

"Am I gonna see you again?"

"Soon as I can, kiddo." John pulls Adam close, gives his head a glancing kiss. "Take care of your mom."

Adam pulls away, staring down at the mitt. "I do. I have to."

John nods. "I deserve that."

"Yeah." Adam stands and steps out of John's reach. He's grown up a lot in the last year, in profile shows hints of Dean's strength and Sam's anger, and everything else is from his mother. He has an eerily familiar expression on his face when he next speaks. "Don't come around us anymore, okay?" He tightens his grip around the straps of his backpack and turns to catch up with his friends.

John's left dumbstruck, watching another son walk away from him. The trill of his cell phone is an unexpected welcome relief from the emotion of the moment, until he sees the caller ID. He whips the phone open. "Please make the mistake of telling me where you are," he growls in a voice even he doesn't recognize as his own.

_"I suppose no one's ever accused you of being a pleasant man, John Winchester."_

"You know my name, about my sons. You have me at a disadvantage right now. And that isn't going to end well for you."

_"I know more about your sons than you think. Their pasts, their futures…their likes and dislikes."_ The man sighs. _"It's always sad to see such a pretty young thing go to waste."_

He was there, watching them all. The puppet master, his girl putting her hand on Dean's arm and John sitting by without a clue across the room. John swallows roughly, an angry ball of heat settling in his gut. "She didn't go to waste, though, did she? You got exactly what you wanted out of it."

_"That's true enough. I wanted to get your attention. Wanted to let you know who's in charge here."_

"You or any of yours lay another hand on any one of my sons and it will be the last thing you ever do. I will end you," John promises, low and steady.

The threat is acknowledged with a chuckle. _"We need to meet."_

"We've met."

_"Talk, then."_

"I get close enough to talk to you, I'm likely to kill you."

_"You're welcome to try, John. I'll send you my location shortly."_

The call is disconnected.

***************************************************************************

A harsh knocking at the door of the room startles Dean awake. He jackknifes in bed, folding an arm against his side and loosing a pained cry. "Ah."

"Dean?" The voice is muffled by the door, the concern is not. "You in there, kid? It's Marcus."

It takes an embarrassingly long time to pull himself from the bed and drag his weary and wounded body across the room to the door. There's an anchor in his head weighing him down. Dean yanks on the handle before remembering the lock, knocking himself off-balance to the point of very nearly going all the way to the floor. He leans against the door for a moment, _choo-choo_ -ing like a train and closing his eyes to let the room steady out again.

"Dean?"

"Yeah," he replies hoarsely, turning the lock and opening the door. He continues to lean heavily against the wood as he does. It doesn't take long to realize he's standing there in only boxer shorts and he draws quickly back into the room.

Marcus is a hulking, domineering shape on the stoop of the motel room, with the strap of Dean's duffel slung over his shoulder, awkwardly gripping a plastic shopping bag in his huge hand. "Brought you your clothes. And some grub." He cocks his head, and the naturally stoic nature of his face almost seems something more resembling concerned. "You doin' okay?"

Dean laughs, sort of, but it cuts to a grimace and he puts a palm tight against the bulky bandage taped to his side. The gauze is damp under his hand. "'M fine." Not his best performance, and he knows he's squinting from what little light there is to be found in the room.

Marcus frowns and shifts uncomfortably. The grocery bag swishes against the leg of his dark jeans. "Looks like you should be in bed, kid."

"I was."

"Sure."

Dean steps aside, bent awkwardly at the waist, and moves at a snail's pace back to the bed, lowers himself to the thin, unfortunately hard mattress. It takes some amount of effort not to topple over the rest of the way.

Marcus holds the bag out to him. "John said you'd appreciate some pie. Didn't say what kind. S'cherry."

Dean starts to smile, then catches himself, remembers the whole _abandoned while slashed nearly in two_ thing. He clears his throat. "Thanks."

"There's more'n that in here. Man can't live off of pie alone." The big man sets the bag of food on the bureau and stands across the room, taking in the space. "So how's the, uh…" Clearly not comfortable with a conversation going on this long, or with anything resembling emotion, he finishes with a wave of his massive hand in Dean's general direction.

Dean can only assume he's referring to the near-disembowelment and what definitely feels like a concussion. He attempts to wipe the pain from his face. "I'm okay."

"I, uh, spoke with your dad just a little bit ago. Said he'll be back to ya tomorrow. Told me to tell you that. He was really tryin' to make it tonight. Told me to tell you that."

Dean swallows, nods slowly. "What's he doing?" He presses an elbow into his side, doesn't shy away from displaying the wince the motion causes. He isn't in the least above taking a reckless shot at whatever sympathy he can garner from this friend of his father's.

"Didn't ask. Don't know if he'd tell me straight if I did, but I assume he's, uh…" He trails off, stuffs his big hands into the pockets of his Cargill jacket.

"Did you see what happened?"

Marcus squints. "I didn't. John said it was a hell of a fight you got yourself into, though. You get some rest, kid." Without segue or excuse after that, just immediately out of the room.

Dean falls asleep before he has time to be properly concerned or insulted.

***********************************************************************

Once he lands at his second stop, sunny Palo Alto, once he's on the campus he'd sworn not to give Samuel the satisfaction of visiting, it's easier to find his son than John is comfortable with, as a father and as a hunter. The boy's letting his defenses fall, letting go of years of hard work and training, and John feels a familiar anger inside, a trail of fire in his chest that has always preceded saying the kinds of things that are regretted the next morning.

He reins it in, stays in the car with a white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel while keeping his thoughts to himself for possibly the first time. Ever. Besides, Sammy seems okay for the time being. More than okay, if John's being honest with himself, tossing a Frisbee in the sunny quad with a couple of boys his age.

_Not boys,_ John corrects himself. Young men. Sam is smiling, laughing, hair growing out and a healthy tan coloring his once-pale skin, already wearing clothes John has never seen, unfamiliar bright colors. Already a man John doesn't know and barely recognizes. He seems safe, but John trails him the rest of the day to make sure those bastards – whoever they are – have no idea where his son is; discretely, of course, in case he's got a tail of his own.

_He should know,_ John tells himself. _About Dean._ An excuse to talk to his son, to give him grief about not being there? It's better for the both of them if he remains in the car.

_They should both know about Adam._ It's a thought that wanders in unbidden from time to time, and he shoves to the side almost too easily. That boy has every chance of living a normal life from start to finish, and if it means Dean and Sam don't know he's out there, then John can go on living just fine with that.

In two days' time he's contented with the fact his boys are all sleeping safely, for the time being. That's more than he could hope for.

John could do without another demon toying with his head; he has enough of his own already. But there's no more denying what's going on here, what's making threats against his children.

This threat has to be dispensed of, and he knows exactly who he needs to turn to. Marcus was right, and there's one man out there with more know-how about demons than anyone else. First-hand experience and more books in his home than there are stars in the sky. After he gets back to Dean, he'll continue to hunt, to ensure everyone else's children are sleeping safely. But after Dean's feeling well enough to travel, their next stop has to be Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

***********************************************************************

Sam raises a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. For just a second, he thought he'd seen, thought he'd heard…but that's impossible, for multiple reasons.

He's only weeks removed from being a hunter, but he feels good about his decision. Great, even. The statement he's made, the direction he's taken his life. Grabbed the wheel with both hands instead of backseat driving when he knows they're on the wrong road. But training won't be easy to kick, and his instincts are nagging. He can't shake the feeling he's being watched. Can't fight the urge to scan the outline of the quad. Doesn't know what it is he's searching out, but at the same time, knows exactly what he's looking for. Where everyone's hands are. Someone wearing a hood on such a hot day. General suspicious activity.

Just as he's turning away, his instincts take over, senses coming alive, tuned to his surroundings. A flash of sunshine reflecting off of smooth black metal, a familiar rumble of an engine that always sounds angry and impatient and like home.

Brady trots over with the bright orange disc, breaking into his reverie. He squints, craning his neck to follow Sam's line of sight. "What's up?"

Sam shakes his head. "Nothing, I guess. Thought I saw someone."

Brady bumps him with his elbow. "Found our Frisbee. Let's play."

**********************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	5. Chapter 5

John's keeping his distance, physically planting himself on the other side of the room, deliberately unpacking clothing into the bureau drawers so that Dean knows there's no rush to get moving again. His instincts are screaming for him to run to Dean's side, to comfort his son, a man now but looking very much like a boy, propped up in his bed like that, like an invalid. Too vulnerable. And that makes John vulnerable.

"Maybe, uh," he actually chokes on the words, his throat constricting in an attempt to stop them from escaping. "Maybe you should stop and think before you next decide to get blackout drunk and pick a fight in a bar."

Dean raises up off of his pillow, hisses and gives up quickly on the idea of sitting upright, lays his head against the headboard in a position that appears mighty uncomfortable. His brow is wrinkled in layers of pain and confusion. "I started it?"

John swallows, turns it into a chuckle, and then forces it into a reprimand. "Threw a haymaker at a guy the size of a house. Don't know what the hell you were thinkin.'"

"I don't even know what a haymaker is."

John brings a fist around in an arc to demonstrate. "Well, you sure made a go of it." He drags the first aid kit across the table, sifts through half-full pill bottles before finding something that will both take the edge off of the pain and help his son get some much-needed sleep.

Dean looks down quizzically at the puffy, gauzy bandage covering most of his abdomen. "And…"

"He had a switchblade. Nobody could…I didn't see it in time." The guilt rings true, even if the words aren't.

"I don't remember."

"I'm not surprised." John tips two pills into his palm and gestures with his other to the back of his head. "Took quite a knock on the way down."

Dean winces. "Yeah. Figured as much. S'like I got bricks in here." He frowns, thinking. "There was a girl?"

John nods tightly, lips pressed together. "The house's girl. Maybe you should try thinking a little more with your upstairs brain."

Dean ducks his head, and while it's nice to see a little color returning to the kid's face, John feels like a piece of shit that it's embarrassment he's brought crossing his son's flushed face.

*************************************************************************

They stay a week in Kennet, Missouri while Dean convalesces, and he feels about as worthless as he ever has, on the bench, relegated to Geekboy duties until his father decides he can be useful again. John has Dean propped up in bed with a stack of local newspapers and continues hunting, never more than an hour or two away. Every time he limps back into the room Dean can't help feeling responsible, because he wasn't there.

They're waiting out the arrival of a new batch of cards in the P.O. Box John rented in town, dipping into emergency cash reserves and once the grogginess from his concussion clears up Dean sees the motel room for what it really is, a shithole even by Spartan Winchester standards. The faux wood paneling the walls is peeling off in strips, the ceiling is water-stained and buckling, and the short Berber carpeting was filthy long before their blood and mud dripped onto it.

Winchesters learn from their mistakes, but that's not to say Dean doesn't sometimes feel they're doomed to repeat them. He's not so much bedridden any more than he is guilt-ridden, can't spend another night left behind in this room because he managed to get the shit kicked out of him in a bar fight, watching his father return from a hunt Dean was forced to find for him, dead on his feet, limping or bleeding or nearly falling down or all of the above. He spends the daytime hours walking up and down the sidewalk outside the motel room, and after three afternoons he no longer needs the support of the railing to stand completely upright. He figures that means he's ready to give it a shot, backing up his father in the field. The pain in his side has been reduced to a dull throb he only feels when he completely rotates or bends at the waist. It's time to saddle up.

John catches something on the police scanner, reports coming into dispatch four nights in a row regarding several canines and one teenager gone missing only to be found mostly in pieces. Dean's feeling good, almost as good as he tells his father he does as John is loading assorted goodies into a weapons bag. The journal is open on the table, notes about the calls and the so-called Missouri Monster freshly scrawled on a new page.

"You're not at one hundred percent. You'd slow me down, Dean. You know that. This thing moves fast."

"Then I'll stay in the car with a gun," Dean argues. He leans heavily against the bureau in their room, hoping it appears intentional. The pain is tolerable, the thought of Dad being torn to pieces because Dean was jackass enough to get himself sidelined is not. "Just let me watch your back."

John relents, for whatever reason, and Dean soon finds himself in the passenger seat of the Impala parked at the edge of a field in the middle of the night. John's been out in the tall grass at least half an hour, and while Dean began the night with an alert, watchful eye and a tense finger on the trigger, he's now drowsy and drifting, listing more and more until he spills to his uninjured side on the bench seat.

The sudden, familiar crack of a shotgun causes Dean to jackknife in the seat with a cry both startled and pained, slamming his right knee into the dash in a way that would seem trivial if he wasn't already falling apart. He draws in deep breaths, trying to calm his racing heart and the heat tearing through his side. Reinvigorated by the sudden movement, Dean's not sure whether the shot was real or a dream or just a physical manifestation of his guilt until he hears his father's shout.

"Dean! Dean, damn it. Could use that back up right now!"

And suddenly John is bursting through the brush, not quite moving right or as quickly as he should be, and Dean fumbles awkwardly for the shotgun that's fallen to the floor mat.

The Momo leaps from the grass with a piercing scream that chills Dean to the bone. It latches onto John's back, driving him to the dirt with claws he can see reflecting in the moonlight as they snare his father's shirt. A cloud of dust envelopes hunter and hunted, though at the moment Dean's not certain which part is played by his father. He throws open the car door and rolls out to his knees as gracefully as he can manage. Graceful, maybe, but not quite as quietly as he'd intended.

He's bringing up his shotgun – standard rounds only – but before he can line up a clean shot the grody son of a bitch is launching from his father and in the blink of an eye is on Dean instead. The thing is four feet tall, maybe, but thick and muscular, and the weight of it would be enough to knock him off-balance on his best day. Dean's weakened body folds like a cheap card table, hit in the middle with a furry, beefy wrecking ball.

Fresh, sharp pain blossoms in his chest and the side of his head clips the edge of the open car door. Everything goes black for a moment and when his vision returns he's flat on his ass with a wriggly creature on his chest, driving the air out of his lungs while trying to eat his face. He's eye-to-eye with sharp teeth, lots of them, and reeking breath to boot, like something died in its mouth.

Then that gnarly, pointy mouth explodes in a shower of bone, blood, and gristle raining down on Dean and the exposed side of the car. He winces away and shoves up on his elbows and out of the way, flush up against the car. John thunders to his side and falls to his knees, unceremoniously shoving what's left of the Momo out of his way.

He grasps Dean's face with both hands, forcing him to meet his eyes. "Dean! Dean? You okay? Look at me, son."

Dean swallows and nods, feeling small, stupid, and worthless. He shakes off the feeling and attempts to stand. "I'm okay. I'm good." He makes it about two inches up off the ground and yelps as a lightning bolt of pain shoots through his chest. He sucks in a breath and falls back to the ground.

John's eyebrows come together and he _tsks_ , the pad of his thumb grazing gently over the tender spot on Dean's temple where he connected with the car door. The skin there feels hot, a small fire erupts in the short hair over his ear. He maintains eye contact with his father, who looks much older than he did just a few short weeks ago.

"What do you say we get the hell out of here?"

Dean nods and moves to stand, both very bad ideas. Everything spins around him and grays out at the edges. John is there for the assist, grabs him under the arms and holds on firmly, won't let Dean shake him off. There is a fine spray of monster gore on the edge of the leather bench seat, blood glistening on the rear quarter panel and door. Dean notices as John helps him fold into the Impala. "Sorry about the car," he mumbles.

"Worry about the car tomorrow, kid." _Where you should have been the entire time, his tired eyes add._

Dean's grateful his father doesn't feel the need to say it out loud, but HE does. It's an unbearably silent ride back to the motel until he finally speaks up. "I should have stayed behind," he says, chewing the inside of his cheek, trying to stick to shallow breaths. "You told me to, and I should've stayed behind."

John is quiet a long moment. Dean can only assume he's silently agreeing with him, keeping the thought to himself out of pity, just as he did the previous one.

"If you learn one thing from me, Dean, and I'm not talking weapons or tracking," his father says in a low tone, "let it be this. You only get one shot. No do-overs. No regrets, Dean."

_Bullshit._ Dean stares out the window, rubbing his sore temple. He tries to decide on the most respectful alternate to the word 'hypocrite' as he studies the blood on his fingertips. His father lives for regret, uses the emotion like fuel to keep the machine running.

John chuckles, almost as if he knows what Dean's thinking. "Call it a lesson learned the hard way."

Dean's frown quickly becomes a wince, a sharp pull of drying blood at his hairline. His father should be ripping him a new asshole, not smiling and attempting to impart nuggets of wisdom. "Why aren't you yelling at me?"

"Should I be?"

"You could have been torn apart by that fucking thing because I made you bring me with you."

"Language. And you didn't make me do anything."

Dean gapes, and that's when he realizes he's forgotten to be angry. In all of the pain and painkillers of the past week, he's forgotten to be angry with his father. Which could explain how uncharacteristically gentle the man has been; he's keeping him that way, keeping him happy and docile. Complacent. Sammy's gone and John can't bear the thought of Dean following, so here he is, fetching him food, drink, literally fluffing his pillows. Of course, there's always the possibility his actions are motivated by something less selfish, by genuine care and concern.

_Should've known,_ Dean thinks bitterly, tracing a finger along the thin ridge of the scar along his jaw. _Should've fucking known._ A month ago John was giving him hell for popping a single pain pill and since the bar incident he's been force-feeding them to Dean. Something clearly happened that night that he can't remember, something more than he's been told, and John's using every available opportunity to keep Dean happy. Apparently he should save himself some time and disappointment and just assume any act of kindness on his father's part is just another move in the game.

_Fucking Sammy._ There is very little in this world Dean hates more than his brother being right about their father. Dean presses the spot on the side of his head tightly and swallows. Swallows again. "Dad – "

John glances over and exhales aggressively, as if to tell Dean _not in the car._ He jerks the wheel to the right, sending the Impala to the side of the road.

The bump of the car over the rough gravel berm flips Dean's stomach in a serious way and he paws at the door handle. The door swings open as John stomps the brakes and Dean falls from the bench seat to his knees in the tall grass just as he starts heaving.

He doesn't hear the Impala's door open or his father come up behind him, so the hands on his back are heavy, uncomfortable, and unexpected. He tries to pull away, yelps as his obviously cracked ribs protest and can't manage anything more graceful than face-planting into the grass a foot from where he's just been sick.

John gets a hand under his arm, pulling him gently upright. "I know you've got a hard head, dude, but that doesn't mean you gotta knock it against everything you can find."

Dean ducks away, both his father's assistance and joke missing the mark. He holds his breath while heaving himself to his feet. Black spots dance across his vision but he makes it to the car, lets himself fall onto the bench seat. At the moment his entire relationship with his father feels like a lie. His stomach roils, and it's safe to say he's reconnected with his anger. The guilt he was feeling before has definitely gone fishin', and Dean hopes the claw marks on his father's shoulders hurt HALF as badly as the steady throb in his skull.

******************************************************************************

Dean's fingers are wrapped around the slim neck of the beer out of comfort and habit, too tired and sore to do much more than hold it. The bottle is still full, and his hand has long since warmed the contents. Sweat beads run slowly down the contours of the glass to collect around the base, staining a ring into the already worn wood of the bedside table. Down the road, his father probably has a drink of his own in hand. Or two, or three. Something stiff, something to really take the edge off.

John's done all he can patching Dean up, taped a small bandage over the cut on his head and resewn a couple of stitches to replace what he'd managed to pop when the Momo slammed into him, not an easy task due to the fact Dean was fighting him off every second of it, out of principle, out of not wanting for another moment to be on the receiving end of this false pretense of caring. Nothing to do for the cracked rib. He's pretty sure it's only the one, but certainly uncomfortable enough on its own, stabbing him with every breath.

John had awkwardly swiped at the scratches on his own shoulder blades with antiseptic wipes and changed into a clean shirt, put the beer in Dean's hand on the way out of the door, already walking crooked before he got to the bar.

Dean lowers his other arm, stiff from holding an ice pack to the bruised, aching side of his head. He lets out a breath, wincing, and glances at the clock next to the beer. Still early, for them. John won't be home for hours, even looking and feeling like shit, not when the alternative is sitting here for another painfully silent evening with Dean. The opening riffs of a late-night talk show start up. He doesn't recognize the host, gingerly reaches for the remote control and puts a stop to it.

A sudden striking chill cut through the room like a knife and Dean can't help but shiver. He exhales and the puff of breath is a visible cloud in front of his face. _Shit._ He flattens his palms on the mattress and pushes upright, biting his lip against the pain.

He drags himself somewhat upright, drawing a hiss from between his teeth, and his well-trained eyes scan the motel room, find it empty. Doesn't feel that way, though, but it never does. He exhales heavily, purposefully, and focuses on the space directly in front of him. Nothing.

_Get a grip_ , Dean tells himself. He's becoming his father, taking every insecure or negative feeling and turning it into something he can hunt. Something to be warded off, something he can shoot, stab, and kill. There's nothing to hunt here, only pain both physical and not and a very empty motel room.

Dean's suddenly missing Sammy more than ever, wants to say "hi," wants to show off these latest battle wounds, wants to tell him that he understands. He doesn't want to understand, he's never wanted to, but he does. He stares down at his cell phone, discarded in a pile with the emptied contents of his jacket pockets on the far side of the bedside table next to the alarm clock. It's eight-thirty in California, and Dad won't be back for hours.

He releases his death grip on the beer bottle and presses his hand gingerly against the sore spot at his side. He braces himself, reaching for the phone, grunting as his fingers brush the plastic casing and nudge the phone farther away. He falls back against his pillows, holding his side tighter and glances at the door. John's never exactly told Dean that he CAN'T call Sam, only shown more than once that he doesn't approve. He doesn't need a working number for a direct line; he can figure something out.

Dean gathers momentum and throws himself to the side just as the door bangs open. Startled, he falls back, fresh stitches tugging, teeth digging into his bottom lip.

John hangs onto the doorknob and plants the other hand on the opposite side of the door frame, supporting his weight. "Feelin' okay?"

The truth doesn't have much bearing in their relationship anymore, so Dean nods. "Yeah." He glances around the room, wincing as he rotates his body. "Yeah."

John squints, clearly attempting to focus. He shuts the door and weaves his way to the other bed, sitting heavily. He pulls off his boots, tossing them aside with a sigh. He rubs at his forehead, wincing as his fingers make contact with the bruises there. "I don't know why you bother, kid."

"What do you mean?" Not playing dumb, just asking.

"He doesn't want to talk to us, Dean. Doesn't want anything to do with us."

Dean shifts against his pillows, trying to get comfortable while causing himself the least amount of pain possible. "I think you're wrong."

John watches him struggle a moment before getting up with a sigh and adjusting the pillows for him. "Maybe. But if I was, wouldn't your brother be here right now?"

Dean, without an answer, leans back, but doesn't entirely return to his much more comfortable reclined position.

His father rolls his eyes at Dean, now attempting to stand, and pushes him back into bed. "We'll move on in the morning."

Dean quirks an eyebrow. The motion causes him a moment's flare of pain but it's worth it to see the look in his father's eyes as he winces. There's nothing fabricated or exaggerated there. It's genuine concern, and it's a sick feeling for Dean to have, the relief flooding through him in seeing it.

John sinks onto the bed next to Dean and helps him get comfortable once more. "In the morning," he says much more gently.

Dean nods, eyes already falling closed now that John's home. Home is more of an idea now than a physical place. It's a feeling. The blow to his head is also a factor in the suddenly sleepy feeling. The mattress shifts beneath him as John stands. He catches a breathy mumble just as he starts to drift off.

"I don't know why you bother, kid."

***********************************************************************************

Standing up to John has never been a talent of Dean's. He's not really feeling up to packing himself into the car again, physically or mentally, but boys never stop trying to impress their daddies. Maybe that's the reason Sam's in California. _Look what I did, Dad._ Dean did it with a sawed-off shotgun at six years old. Sam did it with a sneer and a crisp piece of paper with an Ivy League letterhead. _Dear Mr. Winchester, we are pleased to inform you…_

"You ready to roll?"

Once he's completely upright, the cracked rib doesn't really bother him too badly. So he figures that means they're road-bound, though there isn't much he can do to detour his father's plans at this point. He gingerly pulls on his jacket and nods.

John appraises him a long moment. "You tell me if you feel those stitches pull. No blood on the leather this week."

It's like a hug with words. "Yes, sir."

John loads the Impala while Dean locks the room and returns the keys to the manager's office – the easy stuff. The manager not-so-subtly points out the bruises on Dean's face that have really come to color overnight. As if he could have forgotten. "Ran into a door."

"Sure," the manager mumbles in a way used to hearing excuses for a variety of facial bruising. Dean doesn't like the look he's being given.

John's fidgety by the time Dean returns to the car, antsy, anxious, ready to get in the car and go. It makes Dean nervous for some reason, probably in the same way it always made Sam nervous.

****************************************************************************

John's cell phone trills loudly as he's tossing the last bag into the trunk the next morning, while Dean's returning the keys. He moves quickly to answer it, to silence the ring before Dean comes back and hears, checks the caller ID as he snaps the phone open and, yeah, he knows that number. "Yeah, Marcus."

_"You tell that boy the truth yet?"_

John looks around for any sight of his son; Dean's taken the walk down to the manager's office and with the way The kid's moving around right now, he's got time if he can keep this call short. "They don't want him. They want me."

_"And that's why you're the one with a cut runnin' across you like a fault line."_

"It wasn't that bad, and it wasn't about him."

_"Got it all figured out, don'tcha? The great, all-knowing John Winchester."_

"Not all." An angry heat swells in John's belly. "Just monsters."

_"John, I hope to high hell I'm not there the day you ARE wrong."_

John chuckles, a low one that unequivocally means _fuck you._ When his acquaintances hear this chuckle, it's usually the last they hear of him. "Don't worry. You won't be." He snaps the phone shut, burning yet another bridge, and throws the phone with force through the open window of the Impala.

***************************************************************************

John is watching the yellow dashes splitting the road pass by, and next to him Dean appears thoughtful, in a dangerous way that reminds John of Sam. Like he's convinced himself he already knows the answer to what he's about to ask. "Have you been out to California?"

John takes a moment. Despite the manner in which he's handles Dean's latest pile-on of injures, he doesn't often lie outright. He doesn't see anything villainously dishonest with withholding some information, but if caught has a history of conceding his defeat and confirming what he's been confronted with. He can't undo what's already been done, has never seen a point in pretending otherwise. Wants more than anything to always be working towards the period at the end of a conversation such as this, and to get there are quickly as possible. "Yes."

Dean nods once: _Okay, now we're playing ball._ "When?" He doesn't bother settling his features into any one emotion. Anger, confusion and resentment pass by as quickly as children on a merry-go-round.

"After your bar brawl. When you were out." With more force than Dean deserves, hoping he'll take the cue to shut up. "S'no wonder you don't remember."

"Yeah." Seems Dean's picked an emotion, after all. A wash of betrayed hurt falls like a curtain, washes him out. If he was believing any of this, he'd be embarrassed.

John needs to pull the plug, finds his fingers inching in the direction of the radio knobs. He flicks on the volume and begins the search for a viable station within range.

"You talk to him?"

"No, just checking in."

"What made you decide to do that?"

"No reason in particular. You were sleepin' it off." He can understand Dean's recoil, the way he presses his back against the door of the car. The words sound harsh as they're passing through his lips. _Sleepin' it off?_ He'd been skewered.

It's not often he lies outright.

"If you're not going to let me sleep then I'm gonna need some caffeine," Dean says in a low, even tone as the clock flicks past midnight and the Impala rumbles toward a cloverleaf exit in Northern Wisconsin.

John glances over to his son on the passenger side of the bench seat. Dean's eyes are purposefully focused on the road, jaw clenched tightly, betraying the pain he so desperately wants to hide.

John isn't at all angry with Dean, and doesn't like that it's coming across in such a way. Doesn't approve of the tone his son's using, but can't fault him for his resentfulness. John deserves it. "Sure thing, son." He takes the next exit and pulls into the first gas station he sees.

Standing slumped and holding himself awkwardly, Dean lingers at the beverage bar, staring blearily at a percolator dripping a fresh pot of the station's boldest roast much too slowly for either of their likings. John settles for lukewarm decaf, pours a Styrofoam cup full and wanders to the newspaper stand at the counter, eyes roaming over the local headlines out of habit.

A stroke of luck, of good timing and better proximity, he spots the _Lennox Independent_ on the lowermost rack, a city he recognizes from innumerable journeys to this part of the country, and stoops to grab a copy.

The kid at the counter leans around a plastic display of lottery tickets. "Uh, mister, those're yesterday's papers. You want newer, the guy comes around four."

"Just lookin' for something to line the cage," John mumbles, scanning the front page articles.

_"High School Teacher Hits it Big in Powerball Drawing." "Art Museum to Reopen This Week." "Six Year-Old Only Suspect in Local Man's Murder."_

_There we go._ John glances up. "This'll do, thanks." He sees Dean moving towards the front of the store. "The coffees, too."

Lennox is only a twenty miles outside of Sioux Falls, if he's remembering right, and he knows he is. Knows this country like the back of his hand, the interstate system like the lines of his palm. He couldn't have asked for better. A job, and a perfectly legitimate reason to drop in on one Bobby Singer. The one person who just might know more about demons than anyone else.

Dean appears next to John, and he tucks the newspaper under his arm, but his son's attention is directed at the clerk. "Restrooms?"

"Around back."

Dean gives him a salute with his coffee and breezes right past John. The automatic sliding double doors open with a chime as he digs into his wallet and hands over a ten to the counter kid.

He exits the convenience mart and waits for Dean by the car, sipping absently from the quickly cooling cup of coffee and getting into the meat of the article he's found, a murdered investment banker.

He hears the restroom door bang closed and hastily tosses the newspaper to the floor mat behind the driver's seat.

Beneath the harsh fluorescent soffit lights, Dean appears almost ghost-like. This next stop could be a good thing for both of them. A familiar, friendly face and an actual home to sleep in for a few days might do the kid a world of good.

John makes a snap decision as Dean's boot catches in a crack of the sidewalk. "Singer called while I was waitin' on you. Heard we weren't too far out of Sioux Falls and said he might have something for us."

Dean pauses. "It's the middle of the night."

It's quite a change from the _"Yes, sir"_ he's grown used to. He indulges Dean, continues playing nice in a show of restraint he's never exhibited with Sam. "Bobby's always been a bit of a night owl. Don't you remember?"

God help him if the kid doesn't actually grin. "Yeah, I guess." Dean's eyebrows come together and all of a sudden he reminds John once again of Mary. Always worried. "We're taking another job already?"

"This is what we do, Dean," he says patiently.

"Yeah," Dean responds solemnly, but can't seem to lose that smile.

****************************************************************************

After another caffeine and classic rock-laden all-nighter in the car, it's late morning when they turn down the long driveway covered with a crooked sign hand-painted "Singer's Auto," and the house isn't quite what Dean remembered. Since they first met Bobby when he was eight, the farmhouse has been gradually but noticeably deteriorating with each stop and this time is no exception. The porch roof is sagging, the exterior paint peeling, the yard overgrown with untrimmed bushes and branches, all a touch more than the last time he was here. It's unsettling to see Bobby letting the place go, but nice nonetheless to be somewhere familiar for the time being. Bobby being there to act the buffer between he and his father is a bonus. Dean had never realized he needed such a thing until the first night Sammy wasn't there.

Dean unfolds himself from the car and resists the instinct to stretch his spine, knowing the pain the movement will cause in other places. He does his best to hurry up the drive after his father, his feet catching in the gravel two or three times. To his credit, his father does turn to see what's taking him so long.

John hesitates on the porch. Dean climbs the steps carefully and lays a hand on the railing, steadying himself without being obvious about it. "Something wrong?"

"No." John moves forward and pounds lightly on the door, twice.

Dean frowns. His father doesn't do anything lightly. The door opens after a moment and on the threshold Bobby is a wide-eyed sight for sore eyes. Dean would assume he's surprised not to see Sammy with them, but as low as his jaw is dropped it could easily be from seeing Winchesters at all.

"John," he says slowly in greeting. "S'been a while."

"Hey, Bobby," John returns.

As he moves aside to allow them to enter and gives a pointed look to the empty car in the driveway, Bobby's ball cap-covered head dips in Dean's direction with a much warmer expression. "Dean." Looks like the house isn't the only thing he's been letting go; his hair is long in back and unwashed, his beard untrimmed, his clothes dirty and smelling stale, of sweat, whiskey and engine oil.

Dean subconsciously puts a hand over the bruises on his face as he passes. Bobby's eyes say _we'll talk later_ , and Dean's been wondering when this moment would finally come, and how many times in the near future he's going to have to do this dance. The one where he gives the "Sammy done run off" speech to everyone who gives him that look. THIS look.

Dean bobs his head, once, careful not to make direct eye contact and give away the farm. "Bobby."

The three of them stand awkwardly in the dark entryway, Bobby not exactly wearing the hospitable and welcoming expression of someone who was expecting guests. John's actively avoiding Dean's gaze and Dean stays silent, won't bail him out this time.

"Sniffed out a hunt not too far from here," John says finally. "In Lennox. Could use an extra set of hands."

"Well, then, why didn't you just say so?"

_Yeah, Dad._ Dean bites his tongue to keep the words inside. _Why didn't you say so?_

"Well, you know you men are welcome here anytime." Bobby shoots a glance between the two. "You, uh, need any help with your bags."

John jerks his head. "S'okay, Bobby. We'll handle it."

Bobby nods. "Sure. Sure, I'll just be in the kitchen," he says, holding up greasy hands for them to see.

John's clomping back down the porch steps in no time, and Bobby grabs Dean's arm before he can follow John outside, frowns. "Your dad do that to you?" he asks with disgust, gesturing to Dean's face. Specifically, the bruises still healing.

"What? No. Jesus, Bobby, no." Dean matches his disgust, turns his head away and wrangles out of his grasp.

"Am I so out of line for askin'? You've both thrown a punch or two. It was only a matter of time before they were at each other."

He's referencing Dad and Sammy but they never truly swung at each other. There was one night, a few weeks before takeoff, when Sammy shoved Dad and Dad shoved him back and Dean stepped between them and lit up the both of them, earning a shoulder check from his sprouting little brother that left a mark on his chest for a week.

Dean narrows his eyes at Bobby, swallows but doesn't speak, and Bobby wordlessly backs away to the kitchen.

As he gimps after his father to retrieve the bags from the car, Dean can't help but think of the pointlessness of the first jaunt up the drive, fuming and hurting and finally finished with biting his tongue. "Can't help but notice Bobby seems surprised to see us."

John grunts in response but doesn't seem to see any use for the English language.

"Though you said he called us about a gig," Dean persists. "Like, last night."

John pulls his bag from the trunk. "Maybe he didn't think we'd show up so fast."

"Huh." Dean gently pulls up his own duffel, letting it lay a moment in the gravel. He hurts too badly not to call him out.

"Huh, what?"

"Just 'huh.'"

John slings his duffel over his shoulder and faces Dean. His eye twitches. "Almost starting to seem like your brother left his attitude behind." He bumps Dean's shoulder on his way into the house. Not forcefully, not meant to hurt, just to punctuate his statement.

_And we're back to our regularly scheduled program._ Dean is both his father's good little soldier and his replacement Sammy; the seesawing is making him queasy. He's not one to whine but the way he continues to be treated isn't fair. He's never done less than EVERYTHING for the man. Not to say Dean has ever had a healthy grasp of the idea of "fair."

He moves to close the car door and pauses, catching sight of a folded newspaper on the floor mat, the paper his father had been reading the night before in the gas station. Something causes him to bend, hissing as that damned rib protests, and extricate the pages. It's the kind of feeling he gets when they're on a hunt and he think he may have picked up on something that his old man missed, but God help him if he brings it up. He scans the headlines but nothing jumps out at him. The words are blurring together, and it's not hard to remember that his head's been quite recently treated like a volleyball.

But something must have jumped out to Dad. Something that caused him to lie, because Bobby had no idea they were coming. Dad found a job in that damned gas station and decided to drop in on Bobby for a place to stay without even checking in with him.

A small lie, but a lie all the same. Dad lied. Again. Right when he was starting to let his guard down. _One step forward and two steps back._ Same old song and dance.

And maybe that's all there really is to fair in this life.

*************************************************************************

Yes, he lied. Over the years John's told countless lies to many, many people. He's pissed off folks, lost friends, burned bridges – some very, very recently, and been a downright son of a bitch on more than one occasion. But never unless it's been necessary. Never unless it was the right move at the time. Dean's been so damned caught up in blaming John for Sam taking off without actually coming out and saying it, not to mention hurting, he's not in the right frame of mind to take on the size of what's coming. It's still not time to bring Dean in on this, to tell him what really happened in that bar and John needs Bobby, in more ways than one. Needs him for back up on whatever this new case turns out to be, needs his sizeable brain and library to dig up some useful information regarding demons and their activity. Their patterns and motives. Kid should be resting, anyhow, made that abundantly clear back in Missouri. Could've gotten the both of them killed.

John props open the creaky screened door with his boot, allowing Dean to enter without the added effort. The action seems to piss off his son even more. He stomps past his father with a look he wouldn't dare have tried before Sammy took off, drops his bag to the hardwood floor and strides directly to where Bobby is waiting in the kitchen. Bobby's not one known to require a liquid boost of courage to speak his mind, but there's an open bottle of whiskey on the table amongst books and papers, a tumbler next door with a light ring of amber circling the bottom of the glass.

He's a sight for sore eyes, that's for damn sure. A lot of things change but Bob Singer isn't one of those things. Any more than nature taking its course, seen in graying hair and a deepening of the creases in his face. Same as John, himself. John's not one for fashion advice but Singer could sure use some. A new hat, at least. His cover is ratty and faded with dirty, gray mesh, probably as old as Sam. He'd excuse the outdated outfit on an afternoon spent working in the garage if he didn't know better. This is just Bobby, and Bobby's always had a thing for the sort of screen-printed sweatshirts Mary put Dean in for Christmas pictures. This particular navy number is adorned with a group of mallards taking flights, complete with splashing water and swaying cattails. The hideous thing should be salted and burned.

Singer's leaning much too casually against the high back of a kitchen chair. John knows what's coming next, also knows there's not a damned thing he can do to stop it. The wheel's already spinning in Bobby's head.

"To what do I owe the honor of this very unexpected visit," he opens deliberately. "Not that you aren't always welcome, a'course."

Anyone else might accuse Bobby of being ignorant to the fact he might as well be rubbing salt in an open wound. Not John. Singer knows exactly what he's doing, has already gone 'round this carousel before. Dean has yards and yards of respect for his father – or so John would like to think – but it's clear he feels he's been done wrong. He might not know just how close to the mark he's hitting, but he knows there's something important he's been out of the loop on. His alliances are shifting, anger loosens his lips, and Bobby is a teddy bear next to himself. Singer has that look already in his beady little eyes, like he not only wants to know what's going on, but WILL KNOW.

Dean looks away, and John knows he'll spill. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow. But he'll definitely tell a story. And maybe that's what John really wants; to not have to tell it, himself. He leans in the doorway as Dean sits down stiffly across from Bobby, anger and injury straightening his naturally slack posture.

John is a creature of habit, and much more self-aware than he's been given credit for in the past. He knows he will soon find himself itchin' to be anywhere but a part of the conversation these two are about to be in the middle of.

He'll bolt.

But first, he has to put the bug in Singer's ear, preoccupy his expansive mind with things that MATTER. "Can I get a beer or something, Bobby?"

Bobby bobs his head and moves to the fridge. "Sure thing. Dean?"

Dean grabs Bobby's empty tumbler and thunks the thick glass bottom on the tabletop. "Yeah, sure. Hit me."

"You drinkin' hard liquor now, kid?" Bobby asks, turning with a hand on the door handle. He almost sounds surprised, and his eyes go straight to John.

Dean stares into the bottom of the glass in his hand. A corner of his mouth pulls upward. "Looks like."

John swallows. This has been a long time coming, if he's honest with himself. It's not like he's set the best example for his sons. He's hit the bottle plenty heavy in the darker days of his distant past, and in the not-so-distant past, as well. He doesn't want his boy to find himself relying on that false relief. It's not what he wanted Dean to inherit.

Never taking his eyes off John's face, Bobby splashes a bit of whiskey into the glass. A sip, a harmless taste for a curious boy half his age, and pulls the bottle back.

Dean glances up sharply. "Come on, Bobby. I said 'hit me.'"

John stays on the threshold, not really entering the room but not removed from the situation. Bobby fills Dean's glass a full three fingers and quickly caps the bottle.

Dean grips his arm like a lifeline. "Leave it," he grunts, and tips back the drink.

"Sure thing, kid." Bobby fixes Dean with a lingering look as John turns and heads back to the front porch. He can't bear watching this. Probably because he's the cause of it.

He leans on the porch railing, looking out over the road. A mostly still afternoon, warmed by plenty of sunshine, the tall grass along the cracked pavement swaying gently. Rumsfeld raises his head as the door opens and closes behind him with a 'creak' of worn wood and a gentle 'smack' against the frame. His tail wags but he doesn't move from the hood of the busted truck at the top of the drive.

Singer puts a cold bottle in John's hand, and he takes a refreshing swig of the beer as Bobby's eyes dart side to side, winding up the pitch.

He braces both hands on the railing next to John. "What the hell is goin' on, John? I've got people from one coast to the other callin' me, askin' if you've dropped by yet."

"Why would they do that?"

"Don't you think you should be tellin' me? You show up here after more'n a year without a call. Sam's MIA and Dean's in there drinkin' whiskey like it's milk."

"Sam's gone." John's never been one for words.

It isn't much of a stretch for Bobby to assume the worst. Hunters do. "Damn it, John. I'm sorry. How?"

John gives him a sidelong glance, tipping back another mouthful of cold beer. "Gone to school, Bobby."

Singer shakes his head. "Then don't say it like that, John. Son of a bitch." He recovers, eye narrowing. "Gone with your blessing gone, or run off gone?"

John gives him the easiest possible answer to a question he doesn't want to answer. A long, silent pause.

"I'm sorry, John, but damn it, I told you."

He did, many times, and he's hardly the only one, but that is neither here nor there. "I'm here for help with a job, Bobby. Don't need a scolding."

"Well, you do, but that's not the point, is it?" Singer spares the time for one last solemn shake of the head before putting on his game face. "All right. What's the job?"

_Finally._ This, he's comfortable with. "There was a murder last night, few miles over." They've wasted enough time already to small talk. John loves the feel at the onset of a new hunt, a fresh lead, the adrenaline rush. He wants to take Bobby and the car and drive two towns over to where the murder took place in Lennox.

"What makes you think this murder is our kind?"

"Young boy stabbed his father to death, but more'n anything else?" John squints. "My gut."

Bobby smiles, head bobbing. "Well, those're almost always the best leads, aren't they?"

John can't help but smile, himself. "What do you say, Bobby? You up for a ride?"

The smile fades, and with a perfectly expressionless face, Bobby shakes his head. "Maybe tomorrow. Back's been givin' me hell the past couple of days."

And Round One goes to Dean. Singer has to get the story from someone, and life doesn't stop. "Fine," John says coolly. "No big deal. I'll go ahead and see what I can see. Why don't you try to dig up more info?" He pulls a slip of folded paper from his pocket and hands over the name and address of the victim to a nodding Bobby.

John clears his throat and pulls open the screened door. "Rest, Dean," he call into the house. "Don't aggravate that busted rib."

_That oughta do it._ Singer is a natural worrier and cares a lot about the boys; John hopes he'll force Dean to take his advice rather than let him talk himself hoarse. He tips back his bottle, finishing off the beer. "Back in a bit."

It's just as well, really. He does his best work alone.

*********************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	6. Chapter 6

Bobby pauses on the threshold of the kitchen just a moment, taking in the slumped frame of the boy in front of him. Dean can play like a man all he wants, but he's still a boy in Bobby's eyes. The same one over which Bobby caught high hell for throwing a ball with instead of shooting cans or studying Latin.

The past few times John dropped the kids at the house Dean's been of an age Bobby'd figured it was okay to give him a beer or two, but kept him away from the hard stuff. The last time he'd seen the kid had been just after his twenty-first birthday, and Bobby'd offered to buy him a stiff drink he'd declined with a glance at his little brother. _He'd do anything for that kid._

He doesn't know what these two idiots are thinking; Sam's always held the power in the Winchester family.

"Busted ribs?" Bobby pries gently from the doorway. He's not surprised; both men look more or less like shit. Dean's forehead and cheek are a patchwork quilt of contusion hues and he's holding himself in an awkward and familiar manner. John had appeared exhausted and sore all over on the porch, rotating his left arm at the shoulder discretely, but not discretely enough.

Dean flushes, straightens in his chair, though it must be paining him to do so. "Just the one. It's nothing, really."

Bobby doesn't like the way Dean's looking at that bottle on the table. He recognizes the look, has seen it in John's eyes more than once; like he's rekindled with an old friend. Bobby's felt that feeling before, himself. FEELS it. It's not a good road to start down, and not one you can always find your way back from.

"Always knew John'd pass down that stubborn nature of his," Bobby says, grabbing a second glass from the cabinet. He leans against the counter and wipes out the inside of the glass with a dish towel. "You inherit his drinking habit, too?"

"Seems easier this way."

"What seems easier?"

"Everything." Dean's voice is hollow. The whiskey's already taken the edge off of the pain.

Bobby frowns, wants to derail this train of thought. "Well, I wish I'd known you fellas were comin' by," he says, keeping a good distance at the counter. "I'da tidied the place up a bit."

Dean shakes his head. "No, you wouldn't, Bobby."

"You're right. Housekeepin' wasn't really ever my thing."

"You know whose thing it was?" Dean refills his glass. "Sammy's."

As soon as the bottle hits the table Bobby moves close enough to snatch it up, pulls it to his side of the table, along with a chair. "What the hell happened, Dean? Where's Sam?" He's only human, wants to hear the story here. He slides into the chair across from the kid.

Dean doesn't seem quite ready to spill, is visibly biting his tongue. Bobby pours a bit of whiskey into his own glass. "Boy, he's saved my ass more'n I can count, but your daddy is one stubborn son of a bitch."

"Yeah, well, my brother's not much better." Dean tries to keep his tone flat, careful not to agree or disagree. Careful to stay in the middle, where he feels needed. It breaks Bobby's heart to see him watering down his opinions and emotions for the sake of keeping his family together. Fat lot of good it seems to have done him. Maybe the kid should have leapt into the fray more often.

"The two of 'em." Bobby shakes his head and snorts. "Two stubborn asses, buttin' heads." He pauses to take a sip. "Good for Sam, though."

"Yeah, I guess. Guess I just never thought about him not bein' around."

"Your brother's not you, Dean."

Dean looks up, his expression hurt, betrayed. But not wanting to hear it doesn't mean it doesn't need said. Bobby knows he's hearing _He's not one to toe the line_ , when it's really more like, _he's not one to make the tough choice._

"Huntin's not for everyone, son. I don't know that your brother ever really had him in him."

Dean shrugs noncommittally.

Bobby frowns. "Tell me you're happy for him, at least."

Dean's face hardens, staring into his glass, avoiding Bobby's eyes.

**************************************************************************

"Mr. Wade was a very sad man."

John follows a petite Hispanic housekeeper through the spacious marble foyer, ignoring the lingering aches in his body and striding past a pair of uniformed officers with an authoritative nod. Like he owns the place. He adjusts the knot of his solid gray necktie. He'd been in such a hurry to get out of Bobby's, to escape those prying eyes, he'd had to change into the suit at the corner fill-up joint.

"Coming a little late to the party, aren't you?" one of the officers comments as John flashes a badge.

"Get 'em as they cross my desk," he coolly returns.

From what he's sussed out, the housekeeper had come in to work the previous morning to discover her employer in a pool of blood on an expensive Oriental area rug. Wade's five-year-old son was sitting next to the body, quiet as a church mouse, covered in his father's blood and clutching a knife from the block in the kitchen.

John has a strong stomach but the residual coppery tang in the living room is overwhelming. The thick fibers of the ornate rug have absorbed a body's worth of blood and that won't be quick to dry. He focuses on breathing through his mouth. "Any particular reason why?"

"Mrs. Wade." The housekeeper, Rosa – _wearin' a goddamned nametag, for cryin' out loud, this world we live in_ – stops at the island counter in the kitchen and pours a glass of lemonade from a crystal pitcher. The house is filled with finer things than he's ever hoped to own, the kind of things Mary had always admired on television programs.

John waves off the beverage offer. "She died?"

"She left. In the middle of the night, with one of her students."

_Ouch._ "How did Mr. Wade take that?"

Rosa's eyes narrow and she seems confused for a moment, almost like she's not sure what she's allowed to say next. "He never hit the boy."

John's having a hard time believing that, given the nature of the man's demise. Wade may never have struck his son but that certainly doesn't mean he was a candidate for Father of the Year. "Did Mr. Wade have a temper?"

"Mr. Wade never hurt him," Rosa insists.

"Did he shout?"

She doesn't respond, but her hands twitch on the countertop. She steps away from the island and begins wiping the granite with a clean towel. Her compulsive cleaning is a tell, a show of anxiety.

"I'll take that as a 'yes.'"

"I did not say – "

"You didn't have to, ma'am. You have any idea why…" He checks his notes. "Dylan, would do such a thing."

A dark look comes over the woman's features and her hand goes to her apron pocket. There's something spooky in her eyes, a loyalty he wouldn't expect in such a situation. Like Stockholm Syndrome, maybe. Or like she's been threatened to keep quiet. The whole thing stinks of abuse, but his gut keeps nagging, telling him there's something more going on here, something more sinister.

Rosa's hand comes away from her pocket clutching a worn wooden rosary. She suddenly looks terrified.

John shifts his weight, leans conspiratorially across the cool granite countertop. "What did you see that night, Rosa?"

"Dylan, was…" she pauses, trying to think of the right words, maybe. She works her mouth. "Wrong," she says finally, harshly. "Dark."

Dark. John frowns. _Demon?_ But it's concerning, this new pattern. He hasn't crossed paths with a demon in almost ten years and now everything is coming up demons. The experience he does have says they don't traditionally kill for sport, they have an agenda. John fails to see how this investment banker fits into ANY kind of demonic plan.

Rosa worries the beads, doesn't look like she's said all she has to say.

"Rosa?" he prods.

"There is more," she says, almost a whisper. She studies John's face, deciding whether or not to trust him.

He makes a conscious effort to soften his expression but this is not a strength of his.

She swallows. "There was another boy. A pale boy, in Dylan's room. I saw him one night."

Maybe not a demon, after all. John tilts his head back. _Knew this was our kind of thing._

"I told Mr. Wade, but he did not believe me." Her shoulders fall. "You do not believe me."

"S'not personal, ma'am. I'm not trained to believe." John flips closed his notepad. "I'll be in touch."

*************************************************************************

"You ever meet your granddad?"

"No, Dad hasn't really ever…I mean, he wasn't in the picture. That's about it. Why d'you ask?"

"Well, I can't speak from my own experience, but I figure if I wanted to know the kind of man John was before he had you, before your mother was taken, I'd just have to look at Sam."

It stings in a way he wishes it didn't, in a way only the truth can. Sam's always been the one more like Dad, no matter how many mannerisms or styles Dean tried to copy. He drums his fingers on the tabletop. "Won't ever know, I guess. Time only goes one way, Bobby."

Bobby leans on the table, lowers his face and forces Dean to meet his eyes. "I didn't mean to offend you, kid."

Dean shakes his head. "You didn't."

"All the same. Didn't mean any offense."

Everyone wants to hear a story with a hero and a villain, and Dean's tale has neither. In simplest terms, Dad was an ass and Sam was a prick and they were both so stubborn and frustratingly similar things never could have ended any other way. But no one wants to hear that story, not even Bobby.

Dean is used to drawing the good versus evil line in the sand when it comes to hunting. Dad's trained him well enough to see the supernatural in terms of black and white. He's just not accustomed to having to draw that line in his family.

On the other hand, this is what he's been waiting for, what he's needed for weeks. Someone to hear his side, maybe TAKE his side if need be. It's been just him and Dad too long already; the line is there, acknowledged but never mentioned. Dean can't pretend he doesn't have issues with his father. Sam's abrupt departure was just the beginning. The past month has been nonstop lies, secrets, and runaround. Shit, why stop at a month? Who's to say it hasn't been this way his entire life, and he's simply been too distracted, kept too happy and compliant to notice?

With the opportunity to make that metaphorical line in the sand a reality, something inside is tugging at Dean, begging him to keep quiet, be it love or loyalty or the fear of thinking, _what happens next?_

Bobby has refilled his glass while Dean was thinking, only a splash, but encouragement nonetheless. He slides it across the table, and has a funny look in his eyes. "Wanna talk about it?"

Dean grasps the glass with both hands and shrugs, like a child would. Once the flood gates open there will be no going back to the way things were before this was put into words and given life. This is Bobby, and he won't keep quiet. "Is it time?" he asks with the bite that's expected of him, trying to buy more time. "Is this the talk? I haven't had time to practice my speech."

Bobby's not one to coddle or sugarcoat or splash around in conversational bullshit. "Dean, your daddy could be back anytime. You got somethin' you wanna get off your chest, I suggest you do it now."

Dean scratches behind his ear. "Yeah, I don't know, Bobby. I don't know what happened." Then he gives in. The alcohol gets credit for the assist. "Just the…never-ending carousel of bullshit fights and Sam never bein' happy with what he's got. I don't…I just feel like there's more I should have done or said. Shouldn't have waited so long to chase him down to the bus stop, should've hauled his overgrown ass back to the house. I let my baby brother run off, Bobby. The kid I'm supposed to…that I'm responsible for." He laughs, a harsh bark that hurts sharply somewhere inside. "And now…" Dean raises his eyes suddenly, realizes he let the floodwaters roll out. He swallows and lifts a shoulder. "Bobby…"

Bobby is staring intently. "You think it's okay for you to feel this way, Dean? You think it's right? Sam was not, and is not, your responsibility. You're just a kid, yourself."

Dean smiles, fingering his glass. "I'm a lot of things, Bobby. Kid ain't one of them. Haven't been in a long time." He drains the rest of his drink and lets the glass fall back to the table with a hollow thunk.

Bobby squints. "No, I s'pose not." He's got that look all of Dad's friends have had at some point over the past eighteen years, when he's dropping his boys off with someone else to go out alone and play monster hunter.

Dean attempts to intercept, wags a finger. "Don't. I don't…don't blame anything on him. That was Sammy." Almost like saying it will make it true.

"Well, Dean," Bobby sighs. "Your brother always was a smart kid."

Dean's hand falls heavily to the table. He stares at Bobby, unable to separate and focus on one thought in his racing, whiskey-addled mind. This is what he wanted, right? Justification? Vindication? The pit in his stomach would beg to disagree.

John Winchester chooses this moment to come banging back into the house. Dean startles as the screened door smacks the side of the house.

Bobby looks out to the front room. "In here, John." And back to Dean, his eyes darker and sadder than before.

John lopes into the kitchen, loosening his tie. He grabs a beer from the refrigerator and twists off the top, leaning against the counter and rubbing at his shoulder. He takes a pull from the bottle, frowning and gesturing at Dean with the drink. "This is resting?" His tone is light, a brand new fucking day.

Bobby chimes in before Dean can answer. "My fault, John. Told Dean to buck up and finish having that drink with me." He stands and moves to the counter, collects the things to make a pot of coffee.

"Yeah?" John takes another drink, thirstily draining nearly half of the bottle. "Hope that means you're up for a fight. I've sure got a feeling about this one."

Dean folds his hands in front of him on the table, squinting up at his father, of whom he's actively working on not seeing double. "Field trip panned out?"

"Oh, yeah." John sets the bottle on the counter and tucks his hands under his arms with a slight wince. "There is definitely somethin' going on out there. Five-year-old whacked his dad."

"Maybe he deserved it." The whiskey lets the words slip out but Dean would be lying if he said he put up a good fight against them.

John tilts his head, the only movement he makes. Bobby looks back and forth between them like a tennis match spectator.

"Stabbed him twelve times with a kitchen knife," John finally says.

"Ouch," Dean replies. His insides feel hot, a trail of fire, lava spilling from his mouth.

"There was something else."

"What's that?"

"Housekeeper says she saw a pale boy in the kid's room two nights before the murder."

Bobby perks up, eyebrows raised. "Spirit?"

"S'what I'm thinking, but it's too early to know for sure. And that always brings up the question of whose spirit? We have some work to do."

"We?" Dean challenges, muscles on stand-by, his entire body coiled like a spring just ready to go.

John straightens in a meaning-business kind of way and Bobby pushes up from the table, keeping himself between the two. "Well, now, I think everyone's a little tired and tempers are runnin' a little high, and maybe all that whiskey wasn't such a good idea after all. What do you say we get some sleep and talk shop in the morning?"

Dean points a finger Bobby's way. "Fantastic idea. Great strategy meeting, Bobby." He slaps a palm on the table and stands shakily, tucking his elbow into his side. "Thanks for the drinks."

As he weaves his way to the bathroom he catches the beginning of a conversation he's happy to miss but will surely experience the consequences of in the morning.

****************************************************************************

John's got his jaw clenched so tightly, looks like it might damn near put a crack in his skull. He waits only until Dean has cleared the kitchen's threshold, like he just couldn't keep it in any longer. "He's my son, Bobby, not yours." Not quite a whisper, but not likely loud enough for the kid to hear.

They both watch Dean gingerly make his way to the staircase, heading for the upstairs guest room. Bobby scratches his beard, looking thoughtful. He's not going to take what John said personally; they've been too close for too long, and he's too tough for that. Decides to chock it up to stress and exhaustion, but he won't apologize for lending an ear to Dean. Boy's in all sorts of pain right now.

John's eyes move between the capped bottle of whiskey in the middle of the table and the coffee percolating on the counter, like he can't quite pick his poison.

Bobby catches the look as easily as a fly-ball on a cloudy day, stands and moves the whiskey out of easy reach. He pulls a pair of mugs from the cabinet over the sink. "What's really goin' on here, John?" he asks, his back to his friend. "And I'm not meaning this murder you've conveniently sniffed out. I mean, why're you here in my kitchen drainin' my liquor cabinet without so much as a phone call first?"

"You don't have a liquor cabinet."

"I have a – I don't need to have the actual cabinet to make my point here. It's the principle of the thing. What the hell happened with Sam?"

"A lot happened. A lot's been happening. Kid's never been happy with the life I've tried to give him, Bobby, you know that. He's always wanted to leave."

Bobby shakes his head. "Now, John, this might be something of a biased opinion on my part, but I've got a theory that every little boy wants to be just like his daddy until the day he realizes he don't. Whatever that reason may be."

"Meaning?"

"Sam ain't the first boy to decide he doesn't want to tow the family line. He won't nearly be the last, either."

John sighs, nods slowly. "He was just a little boy, Bobby. What happened?"

"Your little boy became a man. And it turned out the world's a lot bigger than he thought it was."

"Bigger than he thought it was, or bigger than I let him think it was?"

"I don't think that's really for me to say."

John reacts with a sigh. "I've met hunters who've let the job come before everything. Always promised myself I wasn't going to become one of 'em."

"So what happened?"

John laughs. "Yeah. The line got blurry, and the job became about protecting my family. And that comes before everything." He sniffs, rubs a spot at the back of his neck. "And your little theory, Bobby? You mean to say…"

"That day's gonna come for Dean, too?" Bobby nods grimly. "Yeah. Most like. You wanna sit here and dwell on things not yet to come, or you wanna talk to me about whatever it you're huntin'?"

John almost smiles. "Yeah. Sure." He slaps his thighs and slides into the chair Dean's just vacated. "How do I kill a demon, Bobby?" Bluntly asked, too worn down to beat around the bush. There's no use being coy with Bobby, anyway, and he knows that better than anyone.

Doesn't mean the question doesn't throw him off for a moment. He squints, grip tightening around the mugs. He can slap on a blank expression but can't keep the pictures from playing across his mind. _Karen._ "Can't, so far as I know. Only harms the host."

"So, exorcisms?"

"Sure. Worked every time I've tried it. All both of 'em."

"I need you to tell me everything you know."

"At your service," Bobby says gruffly, settling at the table with the mugs and pot of coffee. It's not uncommon for John to wonder about such things, but it is uncommon for his wonderings to take him the route of demons. They're a rare catch, which he figures must make him one of the lucky ones. He sure doesn't feel lucky. "What are you on about?"

John runs a rough hand over his face. He appears thoughtful, lost. Not quite in the moment. "It's been eighteen years, Bobby. Damn long ones. But I think I might finally be closing in on something."

Bobby turns, pouring the coffee. "You think you got a bead on the thing that…on what you're lookin' for?"

"Cam says demon."

Something is off his tone there, something a bit down. "Yeah, he told me as much, 'bout a week ago." Bobby snorts. "John, I trust that man about as far as I could chuck 'im."

John jumps immediately to the defensive. "He's always had good info for me. And what the hell's he doing tellin' you my business?"

Bobby shakes his head. A leopard doesn't change its spots, and a Winchester doesn't change his tune. "Well, seein' as how demons ain't really YOUR business, he figured your stubborn ass had already called me."

"I should have." John shifts in his seat. He'll take help from any son of a bitch who offers it, but he'll be damned before he ever asks for it. "He doesn't know demons like you do. No one does."

Bobby sits back, rethinks the coffee even as he slides a mug across the table to John. Of course he has the most knowledge in demon lore, in signs of possession and their patterns, but that's not to say he's comfortable on the subject. Not even close. Everyone learns from someone, and he learned from that damn idgit Rufus. First-hand experience has since been supplemented with years and years of research, but still, he's no expert. "So that's really why you're all the way out here, huh? Wanna pick my brain in all things demon? Cam's got you that sure of what you're huntin'?"

"There was an attack." John sighs. He accepts the coffee, but Bobby knows they'd both prefer the whiskey. "'Bout two weeks ago. I've been narrowing down the list, was already thinkin' demon of some kind for a while now."

Bobby sits back, frowning. He might not be comfortable with the subject matter, but that doesn't mean he's not going to do everything he can to help a friend. "Possession's a pretty rare thing these days."

John nods. "Makes 'em pretty easy to track, way I've been told." A dark look comes over his face, a curtain falling in the middle of the second act. "Got a call from Marcus Hicks," he continues, "had a lead on a possession in St. Louis, right after Dean and I passed through town. We headed back and, uh, the thing got to Dean. Right under my nose, too, Bobby."

Bobby shakes his head, sips his coffee. "Seems to be moving around okay enough."

John swallows, nods. "Was a trap, Bobby. A pretty girl in a bar. Set him up, and tagged him pretty good." He gestures generally to his midsection.

Bobby's eyes dart to the study, to the last place he saw Dean. "Damn, John."

"I'm close. Closer than I've ever been. They were trying to slow me down, Bobby. Trying to get my head out of the game, going after my boy."

"What about Sam?"

"I've swung by the school a couple of times. Been keepin' tabs. None of these so-called demonic signs anywhere near Palo Alto since he got to town."

"Thank God for that. And Dean doesn't know any of this?"

He didn't do well to disguise his disgust, to judge the look on John's face. "I'd like to keep it that way. Long as possible."

"So he buys that it was just coincidence and bad luck got him stuck by a demon?"

"He was pretty out of it. I don't think he remembers what happens. Hasn't brought it up, anyway." John's eyes dart all over, a sure sign he's lying about something. But with John, he's always lying about something. Bobby stopped taking that personally a long time ago. "But I don't know how much longer we can…" He rubs his chin, staring into his mug of black coffee. "They're trackin' me. Following me. Whoever THEY are. He can't stay with me much longer."

Bobby cocks his head. John might not be coming clean about everything, but this concern is one-hundred percent real. "John, that boy would do anything for you. He won't leave your side."

"You think I don't know that, Bobby? You think they don't? This was a warning shot, a…sample of what's to come. I don't know what all demons are capable of. But you do."

Bobby squints, nods. "What're you sayin'? You're gonna ditch your boy? Let him off on his own?"

John's dark eyes are focused on something a mile away, before he drops them to drown in the dregs of his cooling coffee. "Maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing."

"Maybe," Bobby says, working to keep any emotional from his tone. "But I can't see this ending well."

"Well, that'll be my problem. And my decision. I gotta trust my gut, gotta do what I need to protect my children."

Bobby sighs. He loves John's boys like they're his own, can't let him talk like this any longer. He sets his mug aside and grabs up the article John brought along to the house, the murdered investment banker. He glances at the clock on the wall. "And this other hunt, with the boy?"

"It's real. Just convenient."

"Always nice when murder's convenient, ain't it?"

John sits back, as good as ignoring him. He also moves to note the late hour on his own watch. "Could be possession. Could be spirit. Not normal, whatever it is."

"Boy's five?"

"Yeah."

"Not normal," Bobby agrees solemnly. He shifts his weight in his chair, causing the wooden frame to creak.

John attempts to stifle a yawn, fails miserably. He rotates his arm as discretely as possible, shoulder obviously bugging him again.

Bobby clucks his tongue. "Go on upstairs, John. You've had a long drive and a longer day. I'll dig a little into this murder before I turn in. See if there's any more like it to be found in an area of, what, fifty miles?"

John nods and runs a hand through his hair. "Yeah, okay." He rises, pauses with his hands braced on the back of the chair. "It's really good to see you, Bobby."

Bobby squints. "You, too, John."

****************************************************************************

John wakes quickly, eyes snapping open with a sharp intake of breath. It's never been any other way, not for eighteen years now. He never feels fully rested but some nights are better than others. This was not one of the good nights, and the setting isn't helping.

This bedroom of Bobby's has always been a spare, never had the chance to be occupied by a child but the thought had maybe been there at some point. It's a touchy subject for Singer, but he treats the room differently from the others in the house, almost reverently. There are no books or weapons stored here; the only room untarnished by evidence of a life anything other than ordinary and so far as John knows, he only opens the door for his boys.

The paint on the walls is faded by sunshine and the passing years but was once a soft, vibrant yellow. The small bedroom contains a costly matching furniture set two decades old: twin beds, dresser, nightstand, and a small desk in the corner. The tops of the dark wood pieces are dusty in splotches collected between the more favored of Bobby's houseguests. Singer has an open door and a bed for anyone needing it, but for more casual acquaintances that bed is the couch downstairs in the den, the floor if you've done something to end up on his bad side. Sam and Dean slept in this room several times as children.

The feeling elicited by this room is a splash of cold water to the face. Fuck a splash – it's a whole damn bucktetful. It brings to mind bedrooms like this one, from the past, from a life that seems more dream than memory.

John turns his head to face the other bed, where Dean is still sleeping. He's spent many rough, sleepless nights watching his boys sleep and knows sleeping on his back like this requires conscious effort on Dean's part. He's more comfortable on his belly, but those stitches must really be getting to him, the rib, too. John feels a pang of guilt, as if the physical stitches, the loops of silk thread placed by his hand are the cause of Dean's discomfort, and he's the reason for his son's pain.

Dean's face is pale, virgin snow, freckles in stark contrast to the white skin, like flecks of paint – or blood – on his nose and cheeks, just visible in the low light of dawn. He's been rundown for far too long, and John can't stand to see him like this for much longer. He doesn't know how long he'll be able to keep his son safe.

A stark realization comes to the forefront – maybe it would be the best thing for both of them if they split up for a while. It's the first time John has the thought, but it certainly isn't going to be the last.

Dean frowns and stirs, hates being stared at to the point it will rouse him from sleep, and John rises as quickly and quietly as he can manage, slips out of the room before Dean fully wakes. He showers and by the time he returns to the room Dean appears to be up and a bout, sleep clothes discarded in a pile at the foot of the bed.

*****************************************************************************

It's not uncommon for Dean to wake to an empty room, in fact he's grown quite used to it over the past couple of months. Bobby's guest room is certainly the warmest, most comfortable room in which he's stayed recently, and his weary body would love to stay wrapped in this quilt, mothballs and all, but for some reason he finds himself not wanting to be here when Dad comes back from the shower.

A hot wash of water would do wonders for his sore muscles, but seeing as the shower is _occupado_ at the moment he settles for a long stretch, extending his limbs as far as his nagging injuries will allow. It will take some time, some walking around, to truly loosen up for the day. He dresses quickly, jeans and a black t-shirt, and bites his lip as he bends to pull on his socks and boots.

He'd had just enough whiskey the night before for a wonderfully cozy down blanket of fog to fall over his mind, which is slow to clear up for the start of the day.

It's a hot summer morning, the rising sun rapidly heating the interior of the farmhouse, rays of early sunshine rebounding on the deep red walls of the hallway as he makes his way quietly past the closed door of the bathroom and continues downstairs. They've only been here the one night, but it's already beginning to feel cramped inside, suffocating. Dad demands a lot of attention, takes up a lot of space and despite the unused square footage of the house, he's barely leaving enough room for his son, not to mention their host.

Bobby's up and about somewhere, but that somewhere doesn't seem to be anywhere inside the house. There's a pot of coffee on the counter, hot but not fresh. Dean splashes a bit into a mug and takes a sip. At least an hour old, a filmy iridescence on the surface like an oil slick, but it's drinkable, he decides, and fills the mug with the dark brew. One of their working mottos: No matter the situation you find yourself in, you've always had worse.

Rumsfeld trots around the corner as Dean goes out the back door. The big dog pauses to size Dean up, recognizes him quickly enough and thankfully doesn't come forward to stick his nose in his junk, and slowly wags his tail and continues on around to the front of the house.

Dean surveys the junkyard, shielding his eyes from the sun, but can't spot Bobby amongst the rows of rust-eaten clunkers. At the corner of the gravel sits an old GMC truck, '68 maybe, and beautiful original baby blue paint job peeking through pockmarks of ugly rust. As he draws closer he notices the step up to the bed on the driver side of the truck is nearly eroded through, hanging precariously and obviously unusable.

_A pity,_ he thinks, gravel crunching under his boots as he approaches the front row of cars. Next to the truck is an aesthetically unappealing black sedan remarkably nondescript and not in any kind of obvious disrepair. All four tires are well-inflated and there's no visible rust marring the exterior but the paint is faded in large patches on the roof and hood. Mid-nineties, the kind of car Dad'll lift if he needs a quick ride and doesn't want to risk the old girl.

Dean meanders through the rows towards the open garage, sipping his coffee. On the workbench just inside the aluminum-sided structure is a jar of rusted and warped washers and screws of all shapes and sizes, presumably collected over the years from the shoulders of highways, just like Bobby would, and a thin leather-bound notebook open to a page smeared with grease and containing a barely legible list of dates and the same cars Dean was just perusing, small tight scrawls in pencil, Bobby's hand – _''68 GMC'_ – he was right – _'detail, radiator. '95 Galant – rattle. Fan belt.'_

Easy enough. Dean sets the mug on the table and cracks his knuckles. Finally, something he can do around here. Something comfortable, and easy. He can tighten a fan belt in his sleep.

*****************************************************************************

Bobby enters the kitchen just in time to see John shoving his trusty police scanner to the one corner of the table not covered with the evidence of the late-night research he'd done for the hunter, pushing aside computer printouts and newspapers to set up his own scanner. "Sure," he says with a bob of his head. "Go on and make yourself at home." He tosses the morning paper to the pile on the table and watches as John plugs in the device and fiddles with the dials. "S'like they always say, one man's treasure is another man's trash."

John blows a sheet of dust from the top of Bobby's scanner and gives him a sideways look. "Some treasure."

Bobby absentmindedly picks up a dishrag from the counter and wipes his hands. Habit. He's used to wiping away grease from working on the cars all day. "Yeah, yeah. So I ain't one for housekeepin.' Got a real business to run and, oh yeah, a constant string of jackasses callin' at all hours for ideas on how to not die spectacularly because they were too stubborn n' pigheaded to properly research a job."

John scrutinizes his old friend. "Might be time you start thinking about switching to decaf."

Bobby chuckles and tosses the rag into the sink. "Anything in particular you're listening for?"

John leans back and rubs his chin. "Right now, this is a single incident. I hear of even one more and we've got a pattern. If it's going to be a pattern we've gotta put a stop to it."

Bobby pours himself a cup of coffee. There's only about a cup's full left, and John's looks even too jittery for it to be from caffeine, so he figures Dean's around somewhere. It's no surprise he's absent from the room his father's occupying, but it is a new, concerning development in Winchester saga. "Guess I should get back to work then."

"Get Dean to help you. He needs to do something useful."

_Speak of the devil._ Bobby looks around the room, the house quiet but for the crackle of static and low voices coming from the speakers of the scanner. "Speaking of, where is Dean?"

John shrugs, waves his hand. "Out in the garage, I think. You got anything out there you're worried about the kid breaking?"

A crooked grin livens Bobby's face. "Nah. Hell, I'd give that boy a payin' job, he stuck around town for any length of time."

John doesn't look up, so Bobby knows he felt the sting that was intended. "Well, if you go out there, you tell him not to waste his time and energy on any of your crap cars."

_No offense,_ Bobby supplements, banging out onto the porch without responding. In less than twenty-four hours John Winchester has completely taken over control of his home. He's known John a long time, is more than familiar with his no-nonsense, take-no-prisoners approach to the job, so it's not a surprise to feel inferior to the man when it's just the two of them in the room.

He's not a particularly large man but he certainly fills a room. He can shut down a conversation with just a look, has the deep, rough voice that many seasoned hunters have eventually developed; underused and hoarse.

John elicits an odd sort of respect, something that's implied rather than demonstrated through actions and manners. He calls you out of the blue, or appears on your doorstep, because he values your expertise or opinion. He knows you're a trustworthy man, thinks of you as a friend, because he's left his sons in your care for a short stretch of time here or there, but you will never be thanked, and it's foolhardy to think otherwise.

So little has gone right for the Winchesters, the whole lot of them have a hell of a time expressing gratitude, to a frustrating degree. Bobby's wondered more than once what sort of friends they'd be if they'd met before they were hunters. Or if they'd be friends at all. He doesn't care to muse for too long on the subject, because he feels he knows the answer.

Bobby stretches on the short walk across the gravel lot to the garage, sips from his mug, really feeling that refreshing three hours of sleep he'd managed. The hot, stale coffee swirling on his tongue is a less than appealing sensation on a muggy summer morning like this, but necessary to jumpstart the day.

The garage appears empty, but a clank and clatter from the somewhere within the mess of cars awaiting attention draws his gaze. "That you, kid?"

The hood of the old Mitsubishi sedan is popped. "Uh, yeah." Dean extricates himself from the guts of the foreign car, wiping a greasy forearm across his brow. "I tightened up the fan belt, should take care of the whine and the rattle on Black Beauty here."

Bobby raises his eyebrows. "I need to pay you for that?"

"Nah." Dean closes the hood gingerly, with the genuine, near-professional respect for cars he picked up from his father. "S'keepin' my hands busy."

They walk back to the garage together, and Bobby can't help but notice the arm Dean has wrapped around his middle, protecting that rib and whatever other injury is there. He goes to his workbench and finds a small piece of real estate not occupied by nails or oil stains and leans on an elbow. "You've really got a knack for cars. Same as your dad."

"Same as you, too," Dean says without looking up. "You know, we've spent so much time here, I think I've actually learned more from you than my dad."

"What about Sam?"

"Sam wouldn't know the engine from the battery. Never cared to learn. Said I only did because Dad did."

"Well, that's not so."

Dean won't raise his eyes, keeps staring at splinters in the wood workbench. "What if it is, Bobby? How do you know why you like what you do?"

Bobby gives him a long, appraising look, taking in a lost, bruised young man. "You ever given any thought to doin' something else?"

"You mean besides hunting?"

"S'exactly what I mean."

Dean squirms, put on the spot. "I mean, maybe if Mom never…but who knows, really. Now? No, I guess." He takes a breath. "Did you?"

"Dean, I was on the wrong side of forty when I fell into hunting. I wasn't a kid, with my whole damn life ahead of me."

"This is my life, Bobby. I'm not ashamed of it."

"No, yeah, you really seem to be enjoying yourself."

"This is a temporary setback."

"Dean, your brother's gone. That's more than a temporary setback."

A sharp whistle draws the attention of the both of them back to the house. John is leaning out of the screened door with a put-upon casualness he should have trademarked. "Got a live one."

***********************************************************************

By the time his son and Bobby finally decide to come back into the house John is scribbling notes in front of the police scanner. The good scanner. His.

Bobby sets up shop at the brewer on the counter, tipping what's left of that lukewarm motor oil into his mug. "What've you got?"

"Murder in a trailer park on the outskirts of town."

"Which town?"

"Harrisburg. Right in your own backyard, Bob. Nineteen-year-old blew away his old man with a shotgun."

"Hmm." Bobby leans heavily against the counter, shoves the hand not holding coffee into his pocket. "This is an interesting pattern you've stumbled onto, John. Sons killing their fathers."

Dean's head whips up. He does a poor job masking the motion, running a hand through his hair. "Cops know for sure it was this kid that did it? Could have been something else, a burglary gone wrong or something."

Dean doesn't question his father. That was Sammy. This, this is Sammy's doing. John shouldn't have to explain himself or his way of thinking quite this much to his son. "He already confessed."

"Your daddy's right, Dean." Bobby steps up to the table and shuffles the papers on the surface, scooting a couple of loose sheets towards John. "When I was digging into recent reports last night, I found these two murders, nearby, from the past week. Both fathers also killed by their sons."

_Why don't you say it one more time, Bob?_ John shoots him an annoyed look. These should have been the first words out of Bobby's mouth upon waking. Waiting for John to make the first move, waiting to see what was really important to him. "Well, this kid from the park just got scooped up. Odds are he'll be at the county jail for a while."

Dean bobs his head. "I should go with you."

There's a part of John that hates himself, because he knows Dean knows just as well as he what's coming next. He sniffs, keeping with the part in which everyone in this kitchen, and many more on the outside, have cast him. "Think you had enough excitement last night. You need to rest."

"Whatever." Dean stands before remembering himself. "I mean, yeah, sure."

Bobby eyes them a moment before turning towards the front door. "I'll be outside, John." At least he makes a point to stay out of this one.

Dean has enough respect to wait for Bobby to have completely vacated the house before speaking up. "Wouldn't hurt to have backup."

John nods. "You're right. I'll take Bobby."

Dean falls back against the table, rests his palms on the wooden surface behind his back as he rolls his eyes. "Come on, Dad – "

"You're not being punished, Dean. You know that. You can pass well enough as a reporter, kid, but a detective?" John shakes his head. "Come on."

"Yeah."

John stands and moves around to brace his hands on the back of his chair, appraising Dean a long moment. His son looks beaten, exhausted, abandoned. He knows the reason for those slumped shoulders, for the bags under his eyes. The reason he looks so weathered and older than he is, than he should. John has put this on him, this weight on his shoulders. Dean's always seemed older, taken on too much at too young an age. It's never been more apparent or heartbreaking than right now.

He sighs, leans in and places a hand on his son's suddenly tense shoulder. "I mean it this time. Get a little bit of rest. We won't be gone long." He gives Dean's shoulder an obviously unwanted squeeze and goes to join Bobby.

"Never heard that one before," Dean mumbles.

John's senses were well-honed, his hearing strong before he became a hunter and as he moves to the front of the house he hears the muttered response perfectly. He wants to pause, wants to remind his son to watch his tone, but this time he doesn't.

Bobby's waiting on the porch, rough hands wrapped around his chipped coffee mug, leaning casually against the railing. TOO casually. There's something staged about the way he's watching Rumsfeld stalk a squirrel in the yard. John lets the screened door thwack into place in the frame, rousing the man's attention. He turns, staying quiet but his eyes ask plenty of questions.

John lifts a shoulder. "He's just a little tired."

It takes Bobby a long moment to nod his acceptance of this write-off, for the strangeness of Dean's behavior, the smart mouth he's never had before, and for telling him to stay behind. The nod is about as genuine as the casualness of his pose against the railing. There's no doubt in John's mind the two of them had quite the conversation while he was out the night before, no doubt that Bobby is far from through digging.

At the edge of the yard Rumsfeld barks deeply at the squirrel, run just out of reach up the trunk of an old Oak.

John joins Bobby as the big dog trots over. Bobby shoos him away with feigned annoyance. "Go on, ya idgit."

John is cool, not cold. He knows he owes Bobby more than he's told him, and more respect than he's shown thus far. Bobby's not just a fellow hunter, he's a mentor, and an old friend, and those are growing few and far between these long days. "I am sorry about showing up like this."

Bobby waves a hand, clucks his tongue dismissively. "You've got your reasons."

John's eyes narrow. It's an unexpected show of restraint from the one man who's never failed to call _bullshit_ on him. "Thanks, Bobby."

"Yeah, well. You'll want to get on to the station, I expect."

John turns, appraises his friend. "When's the last time you were in the field, Singer?"

Bobby shakes his head. "Am I rusty, you mean to ask?"

John shrugs with a smile. If he didn't know Bobby like he does he would worry he'd offended the man. "You're gonna be watching my six, I want you sharp."

Bobby raises his eyebrows. "Oh, I'm plenty sharp."

John really hates when Singer does that. Says one thing but means another. "I told you what happened with Sam, Bobby. You don't believe me, I can't do anything about that."

"Didn't say I don't believe you. Just like to hear all accounts, is all."

John rolls his eyes. Bobby drains what's left of his coffee and sets the mug on a short table next to the front door. "And anyhow, we're just talking here."

*********************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	7. Chapter 7

Left alone for a few hours, Dean wanders through the whole of Bobby's home, a long slow circuit of the downstairs floor, alternating hardwood and area rug. A fine coating of dust covers nearly every surface, not neglected, just not of import. His head still aches, a sharp twinge of pain if he moves too quickly or bends at all in any direction but the rib isn't so bad this morning. It's hard not to feel the stitches, though, a nauseating pull in the skin of his side with seemingly every motion, but he has to get his muscles loosens up. It hurts to move like this but beats the alternative of sitting on his ass all day. Bobby's not one for television, has no cable package, just an ancient set of rabbit ear antennae and a small collection of old movies on VHS. Westerns, mostly, and a few black and white monster flicks Dean's seen at least twenty times over.

He's missed this place. Bobby's feels like HOME. The blue farmhouse is a curious mishmash of a life that was and the life that is, and it's what he imagines a Winchester home would look like, if they ever stayed in one place long enough to actually make one.

It's definitely a bachelor's house, and Dean feels comfortable here. Sam never had, not really. He never voiced any sort of objection to staying with Bobby, just felt encased by all points of the hunting lifestyle once here. He always liked Bobby well enough, said more than once he has more common sense than their own father. Dean doesn't know he'd go quite as far as that, but Bobby's a different kind of smart; book smart, where Dad is street smart. They should have bonded more than they did, Sam being the nerd he is. The buckling shelves of Bobby's numerous bookcases are overloaded with huge, heavy, ominous-looking tomes, rarely written in English, piled on tables and spare chairs, and stacked in leaning towers on the floor. Hundreds of them, maybe more; maybe these are only the books he keeps out, maybe only the books he keeps in the house. Collected and found and squirreled away over the years. Sam would always stalk and sulk and pick a book at random to collapse with into a dumpy armchair. He was an expert in a wide variety of beast and monster at a very young age, and his Latin's always been better than Dean's.

Bobby's gruff like their father but different in a hundred more subtle ways. He smiles on occasion, for starters, and while his face is weathered by age and life experience, his eyes are naturally kind. He doesn't bark in clipped sentences or demand attention by simply entering a room. He doesn't stomp or scowl. He makes you feel welcome and he listens, and when he smiles at Dean, John frowns.

They're both great hunters, with different strengths and skill sets. Books. Bobby's about books and information, not weapons, though he has a healthy stash of those, as well. It causes Dean to think about the kind of man, and the kind of hunter he wants to be. A healthy mix of both, he supposes, if such a thing is a possibility. Bobby's smarts and huge network of contacts, with his father's natural strength and prowess as a hunter.

John Winchester does have one book. His journal. It's a part of him, an extension of his being, an inseparable part, like Dean's charm or Sammy's attitude. John has always had the book on his person, for almost as long as Dean can remember, writing, documenting even when they've been between hunts.

The journal is lying in the open now, on the table in the kitchen. Left out in haste, by mistake or some unknown design. Touching the journal is off-limits without exception, as he's learned through many head slaps over the years, and Dean cautiously approaches the table. One eye is on the window, ears perked for the growl of an engine that always sounds angry when it's his father's boot on the gas pedal.

He's only ever seen the pages John's shown him when he sees fit, filling the lines while Dean was still a kid, as a teaching tool, training his boys to find the similarities between this beastie and the last. He feels like a kid now, like he's about to get caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He lightly tosses the pages aside one by one, not really reading anything, and not knowing what he's looking for.

And then he finds the monster cookie.

In the very back of the book, behind a cluster of unfilled pages, is a scrap of California highway map, edges ragged, hastily torn from an atlas at a stand in a gas station. A route sketched out with the harsh tip of a black marker. A circle drawn around Palo Alto. On the bottom of the page opposite the map, an address.

_Sammy._

He doesn't know what hits him harder. That his father's being such an ass while the entire time thinking about Sammy, himself, about SEEING Sammy, or that he's doing it all without involving Dean. He's barely permitted to speak his brother's name, and here Dad's mapped out a…what? Rescue plan? Extraction? It strikes him like a fresh blow to the stomach: this could be where the man's been sneaking off to.

Dad admitted to seeing Sam, but it's different seeing here in black and white that this is where he disappeared to while Dean was passed out, injured and alone in a crappy motel room for two days.

Dean's been having traitorous, unwanted thoughts since the moment Sammy stepped over the threshold of the house in Abilene, but they seem more pronounced in his head since arriving at Bobby's, growing in frequency and intensity. He attributes it to nostalgia, the memories of being here with Sam and the fact he's never stayed at Bobby's without him. Lately, the voice in his head has been Sammy's, telling him he's been treated unjustly, unfairly, that he should stick up for himself. Easier to stomach such thought when you're hearing them from someone else.

The pain in Dean's head and side reach a crescendo simultaneously; his body letting him know that he's been leaning over the table too long. He straightens, spotting a fresh bottle of whiskey on the cabinet across the room and can't keep the grin off of his face.

"Atta boy, Bobby," he mutters, grabbing the bottle by the neck.

************************************************************************

Identifying themselves as Agents Cook and Clifford, John and Bobby flash IDs at the pimply kid manning the front desk. He can't be any older than twenty-one, and on his skinny body the officer's getup looks more a Halloween costume. "You're here for that guy who killed his dad, right? You guys got here quick." Too enthusiastic. Too green. That gusto for the job will fade away after he's been in the world a bit.

"We're going to need to get rid of any surveillance in that room," John orders with the expected air of authority. With these small town PDs you can get just about anything done with the right tone of voice, especially with a kid this green. No question he's been reamed more than once for questioning the order of a superior.

A second officer, older and looking more the part, leads them to an interrogation room disguised as a post-apocalyptic underground bunker. He shuts the door behind them and John appraises the cold, cement-encased room. "Cozy."

Bobby wrinkles his nose. He looks uncomfortable in his cheap, starchy suit, hair slicked back. "Place has a smell to it."

John rolls his eyes impatiently and flops into a rigid aluminum chair. "Smells like a lot of lies have been told in this room. Maybe a disinfectant of some kind." He adjusts the knot of his too-tight tie, the same solid gray from the day before.

Bobby's patterned red is faintly wrinkled, rescued from a crush of tangled fabric in the bottom of a drawer, and knotted in a casual double Windsor. He chuckles, rolls his shoulders and leans just as casually against the wall, hands stuffed into his pants pockets. He falls into the role he's assuming like the flick of a switch, and looks like a different man without his ball cap, under the station's harsh fluorescent lights. Older, really, by nearly ten years. Long ones, too, from the look of it. John supposes he appears just as changed to Bobby.

He's suddenly and unexpectedly overcome with the wave of nostalgia he's been fighting off since pulling the Impala into Singer's drive. Sammy seems so far away and Dean somehow further still, and he's really glad Bobby is around, for both their sakes. He swallows and looks away.

"Don't go gettin' all soft on me now, John."

He looks over to Bobby and chuckles, shaking his head.

The door to the room opens and the same officer who led them here guides a scruffy greasy-haired kid of no more than nineteen to the chair opposite John, cuffing him to the bar running across the tabletop. Bobby remains propped against the concrete wall, like an inanimate piece of scenery.

"You gentlemen need anything else?" the local LEO asks, hands on his hips.

"No, thank you," John says, settling back in his chair. "We'll take it from here."

They wait a moment for the officer to retreat into the hallway. John flicks a glance at the CCTV camera mounted in the corner. The red light blinks twice more and disappears. He gives Bobby a quick nod and the other man takes a seat next to him, so they're both facing the young man. He hasn't yet met their eyes, just stares down at his cuffed hands.

"You wanna tell us what happened at your parents' house, Steven?" Bobby opens, not unkindly but without preamble.

"I've told a lot of people already," Steven Mann says quietly. "What more is there to talk about?" He looks up at them for the first time. "Who are you guys, anyway?"

"Agent Clifford," Bobby obliges, nodding at John. "This is Agent Cook. We're not local PD. In the area on a related case."

"What kind of case could possibly be related to my…to what I did?"

"That's exactly what we need to find out, Steven."

"So you guys are here to hear a story." Not a question. This kid has no use for questions. He's been through hell, his eyes dark and distant. They're here looking for answers but can't assume young Steven has them. He seems plenty confused, himself, has the same look they must: on a search for the truth of what happened.

"Can you tell us one?" Bobby asks kindly.

_Lay it on a little thicker, Singer,_ John thinks. _Geez._

Steven scrutinizes them from behind a curtain of unwashed, overgrown brown hair. They appear to pass whatever test he's putting them under; he gives a relenting sigh and leans forward conspiratorially. "What I remember, it's just bits and pieces. Like when you're trying to remember a dream. It feels like something I watched on TV, not something that actually happened to me."

"How do you mean?"

It's difficult to watch the thoughts and emotions play out on Steven's face. They both know how this story ends, what he did, and will eventually have to tell them.

"It was like I was having an out of body…whatever. Like I was watching it happen, but it was still…me." Steven swallows thickly, eyes red.

They remain silent, giving Steven a moment to pull himself together, but John is ready to hear what happened, not just what it felt like.

"I called over to my parents' around seven-thirty last night, like I do every night, ever since I got my own place a couple of weeks ago. My mom…she's simple. She's kind, and loving, and everything my father's never been to me." Steven's eyes sharpen suddenly, his face taking on a cold, hard look. "Don't get me wrong," he says. "If I did what I think I did, what they're telling me I did, it wasn't right, but it doesn't mean the bastard didn't deserve exactly what he got."

_We're losing him._ John attempts to convey the message to Singer as their eyes meet in twin sideways glances. This is Bobby's gig, why John asked him along. Without Sammy, the people department is a weakness in their hunting scheme.

"You called your parents around seven-thirty," Bobby prompts, trying to get him back on track.

Steven recoils like a child being scolded without understanding why. "I call because of my mom, but always end up on the phone with my dad, being belittled and berated. Like I mean nothing to him. Like I ruined his life."

Bobby tenses beside him, and John leans in over the table. "Tell us what happened in the house, Steven."

"That's the fuzzy part," Steven says, shaking his head. "It's like a chunk of the night is missing from my memory. The last thing I remember, my dad was ripping into me over the phone, telling me…telling me I was worthless, and a mistake, and I'd never amount to anything. All of a sudden I was sitting in my truck outside the trailer, and I knew what I was supposed to do."

John can't help but notice the odd phrasing. "And what was that?"

Steven lifts an indifferent shoulder. "Blow the bastard's head off."

"And your mother?"

Steven recoils, horrified. "Why would I hurt my mother? She never…she's never done anything to anyone. Not ever. She wouldn't hurt a fly. Literally. She still calls me to take care of spiders for her."

"Your dad won't – wouldn't, do that for her?"

"He wasn't really known for doing favors for people. Or good things, in general. Kind of a dick, you know."

John's eyes narrow. "Strong words against the man you just killed, Steven. Aren't you at all worried about how it looks, you saying those sorts of things?"

"I already did what I did. Can't change it now." Steven's face has run the gamut of emotions since he's come into the room, and now his expression is calm. Resigned. "Like I said, he deserved what he got."

***************************************************************************

The sun travels lazily across the heavens, and Dean tracks it for most of the afternoon, until the light reaches a clear patch of sky, beam striking his eyes through the window without a cloud or tree to break up the light.

Framed in bright afternoon sunlight, a halo effect in the small window over the sink. He's been staring for what could be hours.

The bottle of liquor is staring at him longingly from where he's momentarily discarded it on the kitchen counter. Dean loses the game of chicken and averts his blurry eyes then waits for the room to catch up, drawing his cell phone from the pocket of his jeans. He studies his reflection in the darkened screen. He would call Sam, he really would if he could be certain there would be an answer on the other end. But Dad made sure that wasn't going to happen, didn't he? With the encouragement of that thought, the bottle collects its winnings as Dean grabs it up, taking a furious, hungry pull.

The curtains in the den rustle, and a whisper of white on the edge of his peripheral vision catches his attention. Pale skin, a small dark-haired boy with beady, sunken eyes. Dean starts, nearly dropping the bottle, and thinks Sammy before he thinks ghost. Through the layers of pain, exhaustion, and alcohol, he doesn't move, doesn't know for a long moment which is right.

Lowering the bottle shakily to the nearest flat surface, his eyes flick to where his father's left a stray shotgun on the counter, out of easy reach but not out of the question. His instincts, his training is to shoot but the shade of a boy doesn't seem to be dangerous, just standing there next to the door John can't stop running out of.

Dean squints. "Who are you?" he asks, because he can't shoot a boy who looks this much like Sammy, even a dead one.

A blank, lifeless stare. No verbal response.

"Can you talk? What do you want?"

_"I don't like your daddy."_ A silky, innocent chime of a voice, echoing in his head and sending a chill through Dean like a familiar blue-steel knife.

"Yeah, not many people do." Dean inches toward the shotgun, listening to his instincts. His fingers grasp the smooth wood of the stock and he looks back to an empty room. _What the hell?_

"Hello?" he ventures softly, cautiously, and feeling not a little like a jackass.

Rumsfeld barks deeply from somewhere outside, and Dean startles.

"Get it together," he scolds himself, tossing the shotgun aside. _Fuck, Sammy._ He rubs his eyes roughly and moves away from the kitchen into the darker study, entombed in the middle of the first floor without an excess of natural light, grabbing the bottle on the way.

**************************************************************************

Bobby pushes his way out of the police station, squinting in the late afternoon sunlight. "Well, I don't think he's lying, and I don't think it was premeditated."

"How do you figure?"

"He spoke about his father in present tense. Wasn't sorry for it, that's for sure, but seemed surprised it happened. If he hadn't said a few of the key words in there, I'd say this was a cut-and-dry homicide."

John nods. "And there's the pattern."

"And there's the pattern," Bobby concedes. He seems to think for only a moment before adding, "If we are dealing with a spirit of some kind, I think we should err on the side of caution."

"More so than usual, you mean?"

Bobby pauses at the car. "You find a spirit can make a boy kill his daddy and your own son can barely stand to be in the same room as you?" John opens his mouth but Bobby holds up a hand, stopping him. "Right or wrong, John, s'way it seems to me." He opens the door to the Impala. "So, yes, more so'n usual."

John jerks open his own door and falls to the bench seat. "I'm not sure exactly what it is you're attempting to imply, Bobby, but I'll ask you to keep your observations to yourself."

"Just because you don't want to hear it don't mean it's bad advice," Bobby braves before the return trip turns uncomfortably silent.

John almost wishes Singer would go back to NOT calling bullshit on him. There are hours of light left but it's not quite so bright. The sun is hot and low and fighting to be seen between the trees when they pull into the drive. The house is just as uncomfortably silent as the car when they enter, and dark, no lights switched on yet. There's a stillness in the home that is an unfamiliar sense when one his children is supposed to be around. His boys are loud, movement and chaos personified. They aren't _still._

"Dean," John calls, shrugging out of his jacket and tossing it over the back of a chair.

There's no response, and he moves to the living room as Bobby removes his own suit jacket, pointedly draping it on the coat rack.

Kid's been on some kind of rebellious kick ever since Sammy took off. Dean has always done and always been everything John could have wanted. He'd never once raised his voice until the day Sam came home from school with that tone.

Dean had never disobeyed, never argued, never been smartass in a disrespectful manner until it was just the two of them. He's always thought of Dean as the buffer between himself and Sam. It had never occurred to him that Sam's rebellious nature might have been diffusing some passive aggression from DEAN for all these years.

Now Sam, that attitude, and all of those distracting and time-consuming fights are gone, and this is not a good color on Dean.

John didn't really think Dean would use the solitary hours he'd been given to rest as instructed. He figured Dean would stew and sulk because that's what Sam would have done and that's who Dean has been acting like.

Dean's never been a regular heavy drinker but the past few days have been an exception to that rule and here he is in front of John, splayed and snoring on the couch well before nightfall with the neck of a near-empty bottle of Wild Turkey hooked precariously in his limp fingers; drunk straight from the damn bottle from the look of it.

Despite himself, he's embarrassed to have Singer see his boy this way. Embarrassed for the both of them, for what Bobby must think has become of them.

Bobby _tsks._ "Poor fella."

"Poor fella, my ass," John growls. "We're workin' a job."

Bobby attempts to intercept the frustration, gently shakes Dean's shoulder. The kid doesn't so much as twitch. John jiggles Dean's booted foot, nothing gentle about it.

"Sammy?"

"Sorry, kid," John says with an edge in his voice. "S'just me." He frowns, doesn't turn to Bobby as he requests, "Give me a moment with my son, would ya, Bobby."

"A'course." Bobby obliges, but won't go far. Lord knows what sorts of nonsense Dean was spouting to him the night before.

"Sammy was here," Dean mumbles with moving. "He left. He was…right to leave." His eyes never fully open but he sure sounds awake.

The bottle falls from his fingers and John crouches, moves it to the side of the couch. He stays close to Dean's head, and can't seem to help himself. "How so?"

"Right to get the hell out while he could. Out of this…" His right hand flails overheard as he gestures wildly, and he nearly backhands his father.

John intercepts Dean's wrist gently, drops it back onto his chest. He doesn't want to take advantage of what the alcohol is letting slip out. Then again, with the turns his life has taken, he's grown accustomed to knowing he should take what he's given. "You want out of this life, Dean?" he asks quietly.

"Who would want in?" he asks, almost a whisper.

John swallows. HE did this to Dean, to all of them. "Why's that?"

"Always movin.' Always alone. Huntin' things people can't…and not bein' able to tell anyone. That's not really, that's not any life at all."

All of the air's gone out of the room, and John sits back on his heels, slowly, drawing his hands away from his son.

Dean then jackknifes from the burgundy sofa, face white as a sheet of paper. Bobby's suddenly there with a small plastic trash can just in time, like he knew this was coming. When he's finished, a truly spectacular display of gastrointestinal gymnastics John hasn't seen from his son since he was fourteen and a special kind of stupid, Dean falls back against the cushions with a faint yelp, features screwed up and arm pressed tightly to his side. That heaving can't have done anything good for the cracked rib.

Bobby grimaces, gingerly takes the trash can into the kitchen while John gets a drowsy Dean settled back on the couch in a position more suitable for sleep.

Over the sound of Bobby rinsing out the sick in the sink, John returns to a crouch, loosens the knot of his tie and removes it to mop the sweat dotting his son's pale forehead. The tap shuts off in the kitchen and John pulls away, cramming the damp tie into his pants pocket. "Where does this end, kiddo?" he whispers.

"I'll see to Dean," Bobby says from behind him.

"He did this to himself, and he doesn't need to be babied." John stands, rolling up his shirtsleeves.

Bobby is just as seasoned to the rough edges of John Winchester as he is to his life as a hunter. He doesn't blink as he says, "No, he needs to be fathered."

_Here we go again._ "I just came here looking for a few resources, and a hand in taking care of what's killin' folks, Bobby."

"Just because you're not looking for it doesn't mean you don't need to hear it." Bobby loosens his tie and gazes out at the setting sun. "I'll be out in the garage a while, you decide you need me for anything else." The man has an honest life to lead, after all.

John's just getting around to thinking he could use a drink, himself, Bobby keeps on like this. The man seems to have figured as much. All of his puttering around in the background, cleaning and tidying, but he leaves on the coffee table what Dean didn't finish for John to polish off. No more than a quarter of the bottle, so John does his part as gracious houseguest and forgoes leaving a dirty glass for his host, takes the bottle by the neck, settling into the armchair across from where Dean is now softly snoring.

Bobby reenters the house after a bit with an offer of dinner than John waves off, before retiring upstairs for the night. He sits that way in the dark living room for a while, drinking, thinking, and watching Dean sleep. A sound from outside the house draws John's attention to the picture window. He knows what lurks in the night, knows how often sounds aren't what they seem, but sometimes what sounds like the innocent creak of a large dog settling on the floorboards of a rotting porch is just that. _Damn dog._

But the hairs on the back of his neck stand up in a very familiar way and his head whips back toward the center of the room.

John's no stranger to seeing things that aren't there; he's been seeing ghosts for years. He shakes off the feeling, easily explained as a shadow in an unfamiliar house, a trick of the light, Mary. Seeing ghosts is why he put the bottle away the first time, and there's no denying what he's looking at.

John squints to see if the shadow before his eyes is due to the drink but the wisp of a boy is still there, bending territorially over his sleeping son. He doesn't appear to be doing much, certainly doesn't seem to be hurting Dean, so John holds his breath and his position across the room. If anything, he seems to be saying something to the dozing and unaware Dean; John catches a low whisper but can't identify exactly what's being said.

The clouds shift and a wash of unobstructed moonlight falls across the room. Dean's face contorts into a grimace and he shifts away. The boy's hand comes up and drifts nauseating close to Dean's head and John shows his hand, rising on instinct from his chair. His boot knocks into the empty bottle at his feet. It topples with a clatter and rolls noisily across the floorboards.

_Damn it, Winchester._ The spirit is gone, winked away in the blink of an eye.

The damage has been done, but John has more information than he did before. He moves quickly to Dean's side and lays a gentle hand along the side of his face.

They've both shown their hand, right out of the gate. Exposed nerves, weaknesses.

John retrieves the bottle. He squints and makes a decision as he swallows the last drop of whiskey. It burns on the way down, and he fully deserves the sudden tightness in his stomach.

************************************************************************

Morning comes cruelly too soon, the couch horribly hard and lumpy beneath Dean as he wakes slowly, fully clothed, aggravating still-tender bruises and ribs in all the right places. He opens his eyes, gluey from sleep, and winces away from the rays of sun pouring into the room, feeling like he didn't rest at all. The jackhammer of pain in his head is indescribable, and his muscles are stiff from being in this position for so long.

It takes a moment for the fog to lift, for Dean to remember where he is and why he's nursing the hangover from Hell. He groans and rolls to stand, instead goes right over the edge of the cushions and onto the dusty hardwood floor. He instinctively curls to protect his side. "Ugh."

Bobby's study is nearly unrecognizable from this angle; towering stacks of books inches from toppling over onto his face, obstructing his view of anything else. Early morning sunlight streams through the cracks, particles of dust floating in the beam. Dean gingerly pushes up on his elbows. His vision is blurry for a few slow blinks, and then he notices his father seated across the room in Bobby's armchair. Still and quiet, despite Dean's extremely recent and surely hilarious tumble to the floor, staring at him with an unfamiliar and concerning expression.

"Dad? Is…is everything okay?" Dean asks, voice like gravel in his dry, scratchy throat. His mouth tastes like ass, and the breath he's exhaled in front of his face doesn't smell much better.

John takes a long, slow sip from a steaming coffee mug. His rigid posture suggests tension. "Not sure yet."

"Huh?"

"Nothin,' kid."

Dean shakes it off. This certainly isn't the first time his father's been cryptic and monosyllabic first thing in the morning. Pretty much par for the course, actually, and Dean made HALF the jackass of himself last night that he thinks he did, well, he's hardly in a position to be asking for more than clipped, annoyed responses. "What time is it?"

"Still early." Another slow sip, another long stare. "You've been asleep a while. How you feelin'?"

"Headache. Sore." Dean slowly sits up fully, dragging himself back onto the couch with a grimace. "Not the most restful night of sleep I've had."

"Anything else?"

_Disappointed?_ Dean frowns, not sure what it is his father's looking for. Probably an explanation for his night alone chugging Wild Turkey. "I know I shouldn't have, uh, hit the bottle like that last night. We're working a job."

John holds that look, almost like he's sizing Dean up. He finally looks away, squints and swallows. He glances at the mug in his hands and nods, a few heavy bobs. "Just so we're clear." His heart doesn't seem to be in it. "Need a refill." He stands and moves to the kitchen.

Bracing his palms on the couch cushions, Dean arches his back and rotates his neck, eliciting a series of pops and cracks all along his spine and one nasty twinge in his side. A finger catches on the sticky underside of the Band-Aid that had been on his forehead, came off against the coarse fabric. He tosses the bit of plastic to the coffee table and cradles his aching head in his hands.

The idea of coffee sounds amazing but the smell of the bold aroma wafting from the kitchen turns his stomach. His head feels shaken; a hangover, obviously, but more than that. He's confused, unsure of the state of things without actually being aware of what those things are. He rubs the tender spot at his temple. His father's right; he's got a hard head, but it's been almost a week and he's never had a knock to the noggin that messed him up quite like this. He's been hearing things, and last night, maybe…

Dean's hands fall away from his head and drop to hang between his knees, and he stares at the floor. Last night, before he finally passed out, he could have sworn he'd seen…someone, here in the house with him. A boy who looked a hell of a lot like Sammy. But that's crazy. He'd obviously had too much to drink; it's as simple an explanation as that.

A pair of scuffed, muddy boots invades his field of vision and Dean looks up to see Bobby holding his morning cup of joe.

Dean swallows thickly and forces a grateful smile. The expression also squashes the nausea. "Morning, Bobby," he rasps.

Bobby appraises him from under the low bill of his trucker hat, offers Dean the mug. "How ya feelin'?"

"'Ugh' pretty much sums it up." Dean straightens on the couch and accepts the cup, staring into the dark liquid with a grimace.

"You gonna be up for this today?"

"Depends, I guess. What's 'this' gonna be?"

Bobby chuckles. "Not sure yet, but your dad's always got something cookin' in that head of his, don't he?"

"Yeah," Dean scoffs. "Well, like I said. Depends." The filter between his brain and his mouth seems to be very broken. _Suck it up, Winchester._ He takes a sip of coffee, a fresher cup than what he settled for the morning before, and shakes off the look Bobby's giving him. "I'm good. Thanks," he adds, bringing the mug back to his lips. Despite earlier feelings to the contrary, the coffee might actually be doing some good.

Bobby nods and produces a second cup he must have been holding the entire time. He drinks the fragrant brew absently. "You know, you shouldn't have to thank someone for carin' about you, kid."

The combination of hangover fog and too little caffeine allows the older man to slip out of the room before Dean can save face and verbalize something characteristically smartass. He stays on the couch, spluttering without an articulate response, until his father reenters the room.

"Still in bed? Get your ass movin.'"

"Yeah," Dean says, giving up this slow start and taking a big gulp of hot coffee that scalds both his tongue and his manners. "Yes, sir," he amends. He sets aside his mug and pulls himself up with some effort. It takes longer than he'd like to steady himself against the arm of the couch before he moves toward the bathroom, avoiding Bobby's eyes on the way and not going back for the coffee he forgot on the table.

**********************************************************************

There isn't much privacy to be had, sharing a house with two hunters. Hunters see everything and hear even more. Bobby's acting like he's after something, like John is a safe he's looking to crack. He can't put a word to what Dean is after. Doesn't have a word for might be after Dean. But there are people he knows, who hear more than he does, who are better at keeping friends.

If he's going to call Ellen, put her to work listening the way she does best, he's going to have to get out of the house. Dean's in the shower, and moving pretty slow this morning, and Bobby's puttering around like an old housewife. There's work to be done, but he can surely sneak out for a few minutes without tipping the first domino in the line.

"I'm gonna make a quick run into town."

"What for?" Bobby pries. "I've got a store in the basement like the end of days is comin.'"

John throws excuses at Singer like rapid gunfire. Bobby is a professional, dodges them one by one. Even the real police don't go out questioning people this damn early. His coffee is a good brew, and piping hot this morning, no need to go out for something chain and flush money down the toilet. He subscribes to all the local papers not to mention the ones he has shipped in, what do you think I am, an idgit?

_Gimme a break, Bob,_ John implores silently. "Smokes," he says finally, the only thing coming to mind that Singer won't have in the house. Never had any use for them; won't have something that small and manmade become his ultimate demise.

John slides behind the wheel. He takes hold of the worn leather and pauses a long moment, the first quiet, solitary moment he'd dug out for himself in days. Dean's been tough to ditch – which is a bad choice of words. He doesn't necessarily desire being away from his son, but he's fallen into a fairly singular zone of comfort that ends at John plus one. Bobby is the plus one, and yet John sought him out.

His instinct, as always, is to run. As quickly and as far away as possible. He can't, and knows as much. Knows his responsibilities, and right now Dean is his responsibility. Dean's SAFETY is his responsibility. There's a job here to finish, and he means to finish it, if that spooky little son of bitch is bringing Dean into the mix. And then…then, he's not quite sure of yet.

John drives only so far as his aging eyes need to spot the morning sunlight gleaming off of the top of a pay phone outside the gas station at the first major intersection he happens upon. He figures that'll do just fine.

*************************************************************************

The phone on the wall begins to ring, a shrill sound not loud enough to take immediate precedence over the classic rock thumping from the jukebox across the barroom floor.

A pair of hunters sits at the bar top, both mid-forties, been in the game for decades. Regular customers. They wear matching neutral tones: Carhart jackets, khakis with cargo pockets, steel-toed boots, and concealed unregistered weapons. They sip IPAs from tall draft glasses, chuckling with one another in rough bass tones as they trade the stories of their latest kills in an attempt to catch the attention of the attractive widow tending the bar.

And she knows it; puts the tips bozos like these two leave into her daughter's college fund. She leans over the polished countertop, showing the goods her more modest maroon button-down conceals, allowing the low-cut tank and ample gifts God gave her work in tandem to send Joanna Beth to a good, though preferably nearby, school. "You boys ready for another round?"

They trade looks, and the larger of the two slaps a cheerful palm on the bar top. "What the hell, Ellen? Pour us another."

"You got it." Never mind it's nine in the AM and she just unlocked the door. End of a hunt, guns still smoking in the trunk, that's when she gets the best tips. Ellen turns to the tap, lets a bit of foam run out before drawing two clean glasses from under the counter.

"You know your phone's ringin'?"

Ellen throws a glance at the receiver on the wall as the amber brew fills the glass to the lip. "Thanks, Jimmy. Couldn't hear over that racket you boys keep playing on the box."

"What do you have against Zeppelin?"

"Not a damn thing." Ellen grins, setting the beers in front of the hunters and stepping toward the phone. "The first ten dozen times."

Her daughter comes down the steps and into the bar with the heavy feet of the perpetually aggravated adolescent, and Ellen motions to the few glasses in the sink awaiting washing. Jo rolls her eyes, and Ellen snaps her fingers, sets her daughter to work. She flips her thick brown hair over her shoulder and cradles the receiver with her shoulder. "Harvelle's."

**************************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	8. Chapter 8

_"Harvelle's."_

Her voice is a familiar comfort, tearing at a piece of John's heart that he hasn't felt in quite some time. There's noise behind her, much more so than he would expect, given the hour. He's not likely to get the intimate conversation he was aiming for, but he's not coward enough to hang up now. "Yeah, Ellen…it's – "

_"I can't hear – Hello? Who's this?"_

"It's John."

_"Wha – who?"_

"It's John, Ellen."

A long pause. _"What the hell do…Jo, sweetie, see if those two at the bar need anything else, will you?"_

John swallows. "How is Jo? I'll bet she's a heartbreaker."

_"Oh, she would be, I ever let one of these boys sniff around long enough. She's already looking at schools for next year. Has her heart set on 'as far away as possible.' I've got no problem with her going to college. God know I would've, I had the chance. But I'd like her close. What about those boys of yours?"_

John can't help but smile, eyes drawn to the photo of the three of them tucked into the visor. "Dean'd make you laugh. And Samuel's smarter than any ten men. Too smart for his own good. You should meet them. You'd like them."

_"Well, that would entail you coming around here again, wouldn't it?"_

"Yeah."

_"John, I'm a bartender. I can do small talk til the cows come home. We both know that's not why you called, so spit it out."_

"Ellen, I know I have no business calling you – "

_"No, John, you really don't."_

"I know how much I owe you."

_"What you owe me is the chance to say goodbye. You didn't even bring me a body to grieve over or bury, just a box of Bill's ashes."_

"Ellen, I…I couldn't let you see him like that."

_"And when exactly will you…"_ Ellen takes a breath, grips the receiver of the phone. _When exactly will you stop deciding what's best for people?_ she wants to ask. Stops herself, because she knows he's likely to hang up if he feels cornered and she'll never hear from him again.

All of it is right, and John hates both the fact that's how he's known and the fact that's who he is. "And I know I'm probably the last person you'd expect to be hearing from."

_"Even after years of unreturned phone calls, John, the last person I'd expect to hear from is my dead husband."_

"Yeah." A lump forms in John's throat. He's not typically prone to guilt but even he has to admit fault in this instance.

For maybe the thousandth time, a shot rings out in his head and bright red flashes before his eyes, a hopeless spray of arterial blood against the dry, dead leaves under their feet.

Between pain and screams and sharp intakes of breath, _Tell my girls…_

_They know, Bill. I will._

_"John? You still there?"_

"Yeah, I'm here."

_"Well, out with it, Winchester. I assume you didn't call just to say 'hello.'"_

"Wish I did." _Wish I could._ "Ellen, something's after my boys. And I think it could be a demon."

_"Then that's some serious shit you've stepped in, John."_

"You hear anything like that recently?"

_"Anything like demons? No, that's not a very common takedown."_

"Will you…could you keep an ear out? For the boys?"

_"Yeah, I can. For the boys."_

"Ellen, I…"

_"Don't, John, just…don't."_

"Yeah."

_"You know, if you're anywhere near South Dakota, there's a few suspicious murders around."_

John rolls his eyes. This world seems to be growing smaller and smaller by the day. "Yeah, tell me something I don't know."

************************************************************************

When Dean opens the bathroom door, releasing a cloud of steam into the much cooler hallway, his father is standing holding out his boots and jacket. He's dressed in street clothes, himself, not the stiff suit from the day before. "Let's go."

Dean's in the car, yawning into his fist, before he remembers Bobby's cryptic mention of the day's plans and thinks to ask, "Where're we going?"

"What's it matter where we're going? You wanted out of the house, right?"

"Yeah. Just wondering."

John gives him the kind of sideways glance he used to give Sammy. Equal parts amusement and annoyance. "Well, I was kinda thinking we'd solve this ghost problem, if that's okay with you."

Rhetorical, and yet somehow not. Dean settles for a single, slow bob of the head, then frowns. "You know for sure it's a ghost?"

John stiffens, keeping his eyes on the road. "Gut instinct. Could still be any one of a dozen things." His eyes tick over. "Gonna talk to some folks who might be able to give us a better idea of what's going on. See if we can't find out what's making these boys kill their fathers."

Dean shrugs. "Teenage angst and resentment," he suggests drily. "Emo music."

The earlier sunshine of the day has turned to cloudy skies with pockets of rain and gusts of wind fighting John for control of the muscle car.

"What were you and Bobby talking about the other night?" his father asks, in a much slower drawl meant to lower Dean's defenses.

Dean might be hungover, but he's still a hunter, still has both natural and well-honed observational skills, and recognizes what his father is doing. "Stuff," he responds, one of Sammy's favorite blow-offs, and sure to ruffle some of his father's feathers.

"You know what…" John lays a heavy boot in the brake pedal and shifts the car into 'park' outside of a small gray aluminum-sided house. "Now that I'm thinkin' about it, maybe you should stay in the car."

"What?"

"I can't risk your attitude, or your mouth, blowing our chances of getting these people to talk to us."

Dean gapes, hand on the door handle, collar already turned up against the chilly drizzle outside. John gives him a long look, almost daring him to argue. It's becoming a very unsettling pattern between the two of them. When he bites his tongue and doesn't oblige, John throws open the door and stomps up to the porch.

It's raining harder now, and Dean's eyes track the drops one by one as they slide down the windshield and out of sight. He isn't thrilled about being left behind in the car like a six-year-old, even if he has to admit he is pouting like one.

Up the short gravel drive, John's standing in the doorway, shoulders hunched nonthreateningly as he speaks with a tall man with a full head of thick gray hair. Not nonthreateningly enough to actually be so immediately invited into the house, Dean notes with a smirk. _Bet he wishes Sammy was here._ Sammy could always get an invite inside. He'd bat those eyelashes and be sipping hot cocoa in three minutes flat.

Dean scans the bench seat, finds nothing that grabs his attention and moves to try the glove box. He discovers it locked, and sits back with a huff before spotting the keys dangling in the ignition. He drags them out and locates the small key to match the lock, pops the compartment and finds his father's notes inside, the articles Bobby found. His eyes go back and forth between the notepad and the numbers on the mailbox outside his window until he matches an address. The man his father is speaking to Matthew Mackey. His twenty-four-year-old son had shown up two weekends ago with a loaded gun.

Dean sighs and stuffs the papers back in the glove box just how he found them, then adjusts carefully on the seat, mindful of his injured rib and itchy stitches. He stares at the keys in his hand. His hand flexes in the direction of the ignition, thinking about bringing the car back to life and turning on the radio, drowning out his thoughts with familiar bass thrums and drum beats, but he pauses. It would annoy his father, him sitting in the car, listening to music while he did all of the work. Even though sitting in the car wasn't his choice. He'd been told to stay behind much like a younger, huffy Sammy always was.

He fidgets, feeling a warm flush creep up his neck making him uncomfortable. He folds down the collar of his jacket and takes slow breaths. He cranks the handle and opens the window an inch, allowing a wash of fresh air to enter the stuffy car and his strange, sudden flash of anger to leave. He looks up in time to see Mackey nod and step back, holding open the door. John turns and gives a barely perceptible bob of the head when he sees he has Dean's attention, then follows Mackey into the house.

************************************************************************

"No offense, mister, but I'm done talking to reporters about this."

Plan A goes out the window right out of the gate, but that's okay because John packed his pockets with multiple options. He brings up a hand to keep the door from closing in his face. "That's all well and good, sir, but I'm not a reporter." Keeping a firm grip on the edge of the door, he swiftly maneuvers past those credentials and wrests his false badge from inside his jacket. "Just looking to clarify some details. Fresh eyes on the case."

"I dropped all of the charges against my son."

That's new information, and a sure sign of a guilty conscious."That may be," John improvises, tucking the badge away. "But this rash of murders in the area over the past several weeks, new light is being shed on the nature of the attacks. What led up to them, and if anyone may have been influencing your son's behavior."

"You think someone forced my son to attack me?"

"Would that set your mind at ease, Mr. Mackey?"

"Yes, I suppose so." The man sighs but relents, steps aside to allow John inside. "All right."

John turns back to the car, catches Dean's eye from where he's sulking in the car and gives him a curt nod before stepping through the door. The house has little to no curb appeal, but it is much homier, nicer inside than it appears from outside. Sparsely decorated with stylish furniture and floral drapery on the windows, walls painted with soft, calming shades. A woman's touch, though it's not immediately clear whether or not that woman is still in the picture. John notes the presence of a simple gold band on Mackey's left ring finger. "Mr. Mackey, is your wife home?"

Mackey seems to have something in common with his home; his nature has softened considerably since stepping over the threshold. He takes a few moments to quietly tidy up the main living space while speaking with John, straightening a stack of Golf Digest magazines on the coffee table and lining up the remote controls. "Oh. Uh, no, it's just me. Lorraine, my wife, passed away three years ago. Aneurism."

Sudden. Sure, John can relate to that. _Poor son of a bitch._ "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you." Matthew wipes his hands on his khakis and looks around the room. "Can I get you some coffee or something?"

"No. Thank you." John's bullshit-o-meter is suddenly spiking off the charts. It doesn't fit the pattern, this seemingly pleasant nearly-a-senior-citizen and widower being attacked by a vindictive son for no earthly reason. Doesn't fit the pattern, so either this attack isn't part of the pattern, or Matthew Mackey is putting on one hell of a show.

The man gestures for John to take a seat on the couch, but John chooses to remain standing. "Mr. Mackey, can you explain to me what happened, from the beginning?"

Mackey does take a seat on the couch, rubs a hand over the two or three days' worth of salt-and-pepper stubble on his face. "Well, Louis was supposed to come over for the game, South Dakota State, my alma mater. When he didn't show I gave him a call…" Mackey pauses, shakes his head. "And he started shooting his mouth off, saying all kinds of crazy bullshit – excuse me. All kinds of nonsense about…things he says happened to him as a kid."

"Things?" John's sure sniffing one out here, and it's getting good now. He's not sure how far he can push, but knows he won't get any information, any REAL information, without doing so. He might not be as good with new people as Sam is, but he can read them well enough, and he recognizes the vibe he's getting from this guy.

"Yeah, you know how kids need discipline." Mackey sniffs. "You got kids?"

John stiffens but nods. He'd like to keep his sons out of this, but he's afraid that's already out of the realm of possibility. "Boys."

"Boys are tough."

John feels he's supposed to nod, so he does. Not that he would know how more or less difficult a baby girl would have been to raise.

"They need to be broken."

_Broken, eh?_ John squints. "So how did Louis end up here with a gun?"

Mackey hesitates, and John pounces.

"You don't have anything to hide here, right, Mr. Mackey?"

"My son tried to kill ME. What would I have to hide?"

_How about a motive, Mackey?_ "Then let's keep this moving. How did Louis end up here? How did he get the gun?"

"You know, when he was shouting nonsense and waving it in my face, I didn't stop to ask him where he got it."

"Mr. Mackey, I would expect a man in your position, with nothing to hide, to be a little more cooperative."

"I don't have anything to hide. What Louis said, whatever he's told you, whatever you've heard, it didn't happen."

_That's quite a lot of qualifiers._ "Why don't you refresh my memory? What did he say exactly?"

"Said I used to hit him. When he was a kid."

_Breakin' him in, huh?_ John nods, balls his right hand into a tight fist at his side, resists the urge to slug the man. He may have given one of the boys a smart slap to the back of the head when they shot their mouths off, but never more than that. "There any truth to any of that?"

"Of course not." Matthew Mackey smiles, too big and toothy, like he's plastered a sticker over his lips.

A rush of fire shoots up John's chest, a reverse effect of the whiskey from the night before. This is guilt, simple as that, and pure as the driven snow. He has an itch to the show this man exactly what happens when someone waves a gun in your face and knows what to do with it. He just might have, if he wasn't needing to focus on other matters.

The spirit's MO is coming out in high definitions, bright and beautiful colors, big block letters easy to read. Seems these boys each have reason enough for wanting to permanently rid himself of his father, but not everyone can take that step. Someone or something is helping them along, giving them a push.

A boy; they're looking for a young boy, deceased at least twenty years based on the designs and patterns of the clothes John remembers from the night before.

There's a pattern, and at its center is that boy he saw last night with Dean. If he and Dean are to be the next piece of the puzzle, then there must be some underlying similarity, or in the least, the son of a bitch in front of him is how Dean is seeing his father these days.

John can't react in anger or he risks exacerbating the situation. Can't ignore it, either. This is a great lead that's fallen into his lap. His cell phone vibrates in his jacket pocket, and he drags the device, checks the text on the screen. _"I'll call in thirty minutes. Get somewhere private."_ He returns the phone and can't help but scan the room, narrow his eyes at Matt Mackey. They haven't spoken in several minutes, and John can practically feel the man's anxiety.

John grits his teeth, fights the urge one last time to slug this bastard. "Thank you for your time."

**************************************************************************

Dean stares down at his cell phone, the casing warmed from his holding it for…well, since his father disappeared into the Mackey house. He feels alone, and lonely, and somehow uniquely capable of distinguishing the two. John saw fit to bring him here, bring him along to Bobby's and the house here, but he has yet to contribute. They're supposed to be partners. They have been, ever since Sam first climbed onto his high horse.

A harsh tapping at the window next to his right ear draws Dean's attention in such a manner he's sure to have whiplash. The hand with the phone retreats reflexively to his pocket, but the smirk on his father's face from the other side of the glass lets him know he needn't bother; the damage has been done.

Dean swallows as John saunters around the front of the car. He uses the brief moment to compose himself, put up the wall. Be a Winchester. "What did you find out?" he asks amicably as John lowers himself into the car.

"Enough to confirm my suspicions a bit about what's going on here."

"Which is?"

John starts the car, shaking his head. "Not ready to share just yet, without knowing what's relevant and what's…just crap."

"Yeah, okay."

"Got one more stop in town before we head back to Bobby's. Think I'll let you handle this one."

Dean frowns. "Thought you said I couldn't be trusted to – "

"Dean." A low tone. A warning, so Dean clamps his jaws shut around the smartass remark and takes what he's been given.

"Okay, yeah. Whatever I can do, Dad."

His father tugs an old motel notepad from the pocket of the car door and tosses it into Dean's lap. "You got a pen?"

Dean pats his jeans pockets. "No."

John sighs, continues to steer one-handed as he searches next for a pen. He finds one inside his jacket and tosses that next into Dean's lap.

"What am I doing?"

"Witness statements."

*********************************************************************

Bobby takes out the sedan, Black Beauty, as Dean dubbed her. There's no rattle left to be heard; kid did a good job with the belt. The brakes, though, they scream like a tea kettle when he pulls into a parking stall outside of the public library, drawing the attention of anyone in a city block, including a pair of Sheriff's deputies.

_Balls._ Bobby grabs up his notebook from the passenger seat and lurches from the car. For show, mostly, because if the cops in town are talking about his drinking, then they aren't talking about the other stuff.

One of the deputies is unfamiliar, a taller gent with graying temples, gnawing on a toothpick like he's straight out of one of the movies Bobby used to put on for Sam and Dean when they were kids. The other, though, well, she's becoming a regular, ambitious young pain in the ass. "It's been awhile since we've had you in at the station, Bobby," she says by way of greeting. "We're starting to get a bit worried about you."

"Worried?"

She smiles, tight and professional. "You been drinking today, Bobby?"

Bobby shuts the car door, fiddles with the keys. "No, ma'am, Deputy Mills. Just research."

She cocks her head, stuffing fists into the pocket of her brown coat. "Lemme guess. Monsters again?"

Her partner laughs, and Bobby just shakes his head. He'd long ago cemented his reputation in this town. Earned it, too. There's no point in being insulted now. "I'm writin' a book."

"Sure, sure." Deputy Mills bobs her head with a patronizing look, then tosses a shank of brown hair from her eyes. "You let me know when you find a publisher, and I'll buy two." She leans around Bobby to check out the car behind him. "I wouldn't find anything worth knowing about that junker if I wanted to run those plates, would I?"

Bobby shrugs. "You askin' me if it's stolen when I'm standin' right next to it? I ain't that stupid."

"Why don't we just check and see then?" her partner asks with a comically villainous sneer, drifting away towards their patrol car.

_BALLS._ Bobby's trying to remember which cars are registered to him and which cars actually are stolen, when Deputy Mills holds up a hand to stop him.

"Carl, hold up. I think we've taken up enough of Mr. Singer's time for today."

Carl drops into the passenger seat of the patrol car with a sigh, like she's spoiled his fun. Bobby raises his eyebrows. "You tryin' to make Sheriff or something?"

"Someday, maybe." She smiles easily, then narrows her eyes. "For now, I'll settle for safe streets. You do your research and get back on home, okay?"

Bobby sighs, dips his head with a tap to the brim. "Yes, ma'am."

************************************************************************

Dean hops up the short set of steps to the trailer. The aluminum creaks underfoot and he has a fleeting concern that his weight will be enough to rip the stairs away from the rest of the home. Bouncing on the balls of feet, he deems the steps sturdy enough to not cause him immediately bodily harm, and raps quickly on the frame of the screened door before hopping back down to the relative safety of solid ground. He can't help the feeling that this isn't so much an important interview as it is an excuse for Dad to ditch him.

The front door jerks open but the middle-aged woman inside the trailer stops at the screen. "Yes?"

"Mrs. Leavy?" He plasters on a smile so fake it hurts. "Hi, I'm Dean."

She's unimpressed, almost impressively so. "And you are?"

"Fact-checking, the accident that happened next door. Uh, class assignment. Journalism."

"What happened to…" She trails off, decides it's more polite to simply point to his face rather than say it.

Dean grins, the bruises bringing out a dull throb at his temple and cheekbone as the skin there tightens. "Uh, car accident."

She winces in sympathy and props open the screened door, and Dean suddenly misses his little brother. Sam was so much better than this. He'd be inside picking cat hair off his shirt by now, not getting this suspicious, quirked eyebrow. "You're a student?"

"Yeah. Yep. We had to pick a local news story and conduct a follow-up interview with an eye witness. You're the one who called 911, right?"

"Yeah, I was the one who called." Despite the warmish weather, she's dressed in a cable-knit sweater and hugs herself tightly. She still doesn't invite him inside, but does step completely out of the trailer, finally putting them at the same level and allowing Dean to feel less like an unwanted creep. She extends a hand. "Kathy."

Dean gives her hand a quick, professional pump and draws Dad's notepad and pen from his back pocket. "Hi, Kathy. Could you tell me a little bit about that night, from your perspective?"

"Yeah, sure, but can we make this quick?" She waits for Dean to nod before continuing. "I was washing dishes after dinner. My husband doesn't get home from the warehouse until late, so our schedules are a little non-traditional."

"You heard the gunshot?"

She nods. "My father was a hunter. Just deer, nothing illegal…but I knew it was a shotgun."

"Not something you usually hear around these parts?"

She gives him an odd look. "No, not usually."

Dean jots a few notes onto a small pad, partly for show, partly to have something so his father won't think he was just dicking around out here. "Did you happen to see Steven enter or leave the trailer?"

"You're starting to sound more like a cop than a journalism student."

Dean grins easily, holds up on the note-taking for a minute. "I get that a lot. Kinda wanted to be one when I was a kid."

She returns the smile. "So did my son."

"Yeah? He make that happen?"

"Middle school math teacher."

"Just as dangerous, if those kids are anything like I was."

She nods, finally warming up. There's a learning curve on not being an asshole to complete strangers. Dean's no natural. "Yeah, I saw Steven leave. We've been neighbors his whole life."

"And as a kid, he was…"

"Quiet, small. Micah, my son, was a little older but they were friends. Steven used to come over most afternoons. I'd make the boys chocolate chip cookies and they'd watch cartoons. I don't think he had a very enjoyable life at home."

"What makes you say that?"

"I used to hear Phil, Steven's father, yelling. Almost as loud as the gunshot. Steven stayed in that house too long. Only moved out a couple of weeks ago."

Dean nods. "Back to that night, how did Steven seem when you saw him?"

"It was very strange. He seemed…Steven was always a good kid but it looked like he was under the influence of something."

"How do you mean? Like drugs or alcohol?"

"Like…I'm not really sure how to say it. After I heard the shot, I grabbed the phone and ran to the window. I saw him leaving the house, dragging the shotgun behind him. His eyes were…he just had a weird look to him."

"How did you see him so clearly?"

Kathy nods out to the street corner, and Dean follows her gaze. "Streetlights. And it was a pretty clear night." She digs into the deep pocket of her oversized sweater, pulls out a wrinkled package of cigarettes. "Does, uh, does any of that help with your assignment?"

"Huh?" Dean tucks the notepad back into his pocket. "Oh, yeah, it does. Thanks a bunch."

She lights a cigarette, takes a long drag and nods as she blows a plume of smoke. "Where're you studying?"

"Hmm?" Dean's already scanning the narrow street for any sign of the Impala's return, having wanted to extricate himself from the immediate area before this very thing had a chance to happen. "The community college."

"Which one?"

Dean pulls his dark, silent cell phone out of his jacket pocket and presses a button, anything to make a light or noise. He begins backtracking toward the sidewalk. "I'm so sorry, Mrs. Leavy. I don't mean to be rude, but I've really gotta take this call."

"Yeah." She scrutinizes him a moment longer before turning to step back up into her trailer. "Yeah, no problem."

***********************************************************************

John paces outside of the liquor store, a place he figures it isn't uncommon to see such erratic behavior, certainly not uncommon enough to get the local LEOs called on him. The phone rings in his hand, and the screen reads, _Private Caller._

He squints, and his nostrils flare. He brings the phone up and forgoes the formality of a greeting and goes straight to information-gathering. "How many of you are there?"

_"As many as it takes. They're my children."_

"Your what?" he asks, in disbelief.

_"So traditional, John. No, not in the strictest sense, I suppose. But there are a lot of lost souls in Hell, and they turn to me for guidance."_

John rolls his eyes. "Oh, I'm sorry. Were you still talking?"

_"You can laugh now, John. I wonder if it will still be so funny when it's your children we're talking about."_

"We're not going to talk about my children," John hisses, with fire and disgust. "You're not going to have anything else to do with them."

_"Such authority. It's almost as though you're overcompensating for something."_

"Was there a point of any kind to this call?"

_"As a matter of fact, yes. I wanted to make sure we were still on the same page. Because, John, I thought we'd had a talk about short leashes and straying pups."_

"I think this is the last talk we're going to have. Next time I talk to you, it will be to let you know I'm about to kill you." John snaps the phone shut and grips the plastic tightly in his fist. He wants to toss it, walks over to the stinking trash can outside the swinging glass door and everything, but pulls his hand back before he makes the toss, angrily stuffs the phone back into his pocket.

John's a horrible bluffer, doesn't know how he gets a damn thing past anyone.

He drives the Impala back across town in a no-nonsense sort of way, comes up quickly behind Dean shuffling along the street, hands stuffed into his pockets. He honks the horn once as he drifts closer to the curb, jerks her to a hard stop that draws an eyebrow raise from his son. "Hey, kid. Let's motor."

*************************************************************************

Bobby throws open the car door and exits the vehicle into a cloud of dust kicked up from the spinning tires. Rumsfeld wags his tail and woofs a deep hello from his shady spot on the porch, and one of the phones in the house is ringing; he can hear it through the open kitchen window. He scoops up the stack of books from the passenger seat and rushes up the steps and through the creaky screened door, stopping to eye the bank of phones. FBI, CDC, Homeland Security. He rules them out one by one before realizing the source of the ring is the house's landline. A rarity these long, lonely days.

Bobby tucks the materials from the library under his arm and grabs up the receiver. "Yeah." He squints, listening a moment. _Oh, for the love of…_ "No, ya idgit, you have to cut the head off. Shooting it will only piss it off." He shakes his head. "Seriously, how are you not dead?"

Bobby replaces the phone and sighs, contemplates the bottle on the counter, shoots a glance at the clock ticking on the wall. Before he can reach for it the phone rings once more. The landline again. He snatches it quickly. "Damn it, Rufus, if you can't – "

_"You mind not screaming in my ear, Bobby?"_

Bobby smiles and sinks into a chair, forgetting about the liquor. "Hey, Ellen. Sorry about that." He sets his research aside on the table, props his boot up on a second chair. It's been too damn long since he's heard her voice. It wraps around and warms him like a fleece blanket, or a steaming cup of tea.

_"You're about to be sorry for a lot more than that. S'John Winchester there with you?"_

Bobby's brow wrinkles. "The hell would make you think – "

_"Don't play games with me, Singer. He called me this morning. I've got some redneck kid just started renting the room out back, keeps talking everyone's ear off about how he went to M.I.T. Finally told him I'd clear his tab if he could prove it, got him to run a back trace on John's call and it came up as a payphone in your area code. Now why don't you tell me what the hell is going on out there?"_

"Ellen –"

_"And don't lie to me. He called me talking about demons, of all things."_

Bobby sighs, rethinking a few of his more recent choices. He reaches across the table, knocks asides the file folder he'd discarded, and drags the previously bypassed bottle of whiskey closer. "Yeah, he showed up here saying the same things. He's got me puttin' together whatever I can find for him."

_"What do you mean, whatever you can find?"_

"Exorcisms, summoning spells. The whole enchilada."

When Ellen speak again, her tone is somber. _"Bobby, we've both known John a long time, and he's as private a man as they come. He's talking to you. He's talking to me. As much as I'd like to think we're special, there must be others. He's putting out a damn APB on this demon."_

"On ANY demon, is more like." Bobby tips the chair back on two legs, snags a glass from the drying mat on the counter behind him.

_"Then it's not going to be long before the demons put a hit out on him. It's not exactly stealthy, and it's not like John."_

"This is personal, Ellen. It's about his family."

_"Yeah, he said they're after the boys."_

"One of 'em dressed up as a pretty girl. Came onto Dean at a bar and took a swipe at him. John doesn't think it was about the kid."

_"He thinks they wanted him?"_

"Wanted him to stop sniffing around, is more like." Familiar with John's sense of timing, Bobby is suddenly paranoid for an appearance, checking the doors and windows for sight of the man's return. "Of course, being John, that only encouraged him to sniff around more. I figure it's not gonna hurt much, giving him a hand."

Ellen lets out a long, stressed breath. Her tension is painfully familiar to his own state of mind. He wishes they spoke more often, under other circumstances. _"I'll do whatever I can do, Bobby. But I've got my own family to worry about."_

"Of course. You'll keep this to yourself?"

_"Who're you talking to, Singer?"_

Bobby holds up a calming hand, like she's in the room with him. "You're right, you're right. Just…keep your ear to the ground."

_"I always do. And, Singer, one more thing? Next time, don't wait for me to call you."_

Bobby keeps a hold on the receiver, listening to the dial tone. A familiar rumble outside, the metallic groan of the Chevy being thrown into 'park.' He studies his near-empty glass. _Better make it two._ And after another moment, _or three,_ although he'd rather see Dean acting like a kid again, drinking milk or soda. Dean isn't his son, but he feels the growing pains, all the same.

John bursts through the door with hurricane force, as usual and as expected. He skips the greeting, going immediately into, "Mackey's story was just as expected. Guy was an asshole to his son and his son tried to kill him."

**************************************************************************

"And good evening to you, John," Bobby says pointedly, pouring the other man a glass and sliding it across the table. Dean lowers himself into a chair with a smirk. He shakes his head when Bobby gestures to the bottle. "What about you, kid?"

"No, thanks, Bobby. A neighbor in the trailer park said it seemed like your guy Mann was under the influence of something." He glances up at his father. "Doesn't have to be ghost. Could just be drugs."

"Too commonplace to fit our pattern." John brings his glass to his lips, shaking his head. "No. My gut says all of the murders are connected. Says it's a spook."

Bobby straightens in his chair and leans across the table. He pushes aside the folders on top of his pile and extracts a few loose printouts. "Then I think I might have dug up something you'll be interested in seeing. I came across this in archives." Bobby sets a sheet of paper on the table between them.

Dean leans over to catch a glimpse as John pulls Bobby's offering closer to himself.

"October fourteenth, nineteen seventy-three," Bobby continues. "Isaiah Turner, six years old, found dead in the cellar."

"How does that help us? What happened?"

"Well, why don't you pipe down and let me tell ya?" Bobby shakes his head.

Dean smiles and ducks his head so his father won't see.

"Neighbor noticed the, uh, smell, and called the police. Officers discovered the boy's father, Jacob, passed out upstairs in front of the television. He was a drunk, and the nastiest kind. Isaiah's mother died in childbirth, and Jacob never came back from it. Tended to take it out on the kid, according to the neighbors."

"Neighbors noticed and didn't do anything?" John asks, disgusted.

"Not everyone is a good Samaritan." Bobby shuffles the papers in his hands. "Jacob used to lock the poor boy in the cellar for days at a time. Eventually left him there to die."

John leans back in his chair, running a rough hand over his face.

"You think this kid is our ghost?" Dean asks.

Bobby nods. "Story fits the pattern to a 'tee.' Our victims have all been abusive fathers, in one way or another."

"This is him." John clears his throat. "You find a picture of this kid, Bobby. I'd like to see who we're dealing with."

The other man raises his eyebrows. "Yeah." He hesitates before setting a second sheet of paper over the first. "Yeah."

Dean sucks in a breath as he studies the photograph and glances at his father's face. John eyes are distant but his jaw is set, determined. There's recognition in his dark expression, and it's no wonder why.

Dean has to wonder if they're here because of the ghost or if the ghost is here because of them, because DAMN if that little boy doesn't look just like Sammy.

The sun is setting beyond the west-facing window of Bobby's small kitchen, bathing the men in a hot, harsh wash of orange light. Dean squints through the flare, studying his father's strange expression as he stares at the black-and-white image of young Isaiah Thomas.

Dean swallows. Something about this boy is tugging at the back of his mind, like a dream he's been trying to remember. It's damn frustrating, and more than the fact he could very well be looking at a picture of his baby brother.

"You okay, kid?"

Dean breaks eye contact with the photo, meets Bobby's gaze. He seems concerned, looking between the two Winchesters. His father seems more analytical than concerned, studying Dean while absorbing the information and already plotting his next move.

Dean swallows. "Yeah. Fine."

"You look like you've seen a ghost," John comments.

Bobby chuckles at what he assumes is a bad joke but Dean knows his father better than that, and hears what Singer doesn't: the accusation.

_Sorry to disappoint, Dad._ Dean forces a smile to his lips. "No. M'fine. What's our next move?"

John crosses his arms. "If it's a spirit, we need to find the bones."

"So it's a simple salt and burn."

John gives Dean an amused, sideways glance. "You ever seen a simple salt and burn?"

"Guess not."

His father returns his attention to Bobby. "You find out where the Turners are buried?"

Bobby wraps his calloused palms around the back of the chair between them. "The paper says the mother's family claimed the body, had the boy buried in their family plot, right here in Sioux Falls."

"Papers are wrong all the time. We should check out the Turners."

"I think Bobby's right," Dean puts his two cents in, earning a glare.

"Then why don't we check out both plots," John grits.

"Both plots are in yards here in town. Maiden name was Warren," Bobby supplies helpfully.

"Dean, go with Bobby. Check the mother's family plot."

Dean nods, not feeling the love in the shove-off to Bobby. "Yeah."

"All right." John claps his hands together. It's time to get down to business. "Why don't you pack up the bags?"

"Sure."

Bobby stands by the table and watches John stares at the pictures as Dean goes to their pile of bags in the study. "You feel bad it's a kid?" the older hunter asks.

"S'not a kid, Bobby. It's an it. And it needs to be ended."

************************************************************************

Dean leans heavily against the door, watching the outline of trees blur as the car passes. The engine of this outdated rust bucket Bobby's scrounged up for the drive is a screaming, screeching mess. They pull to a stop at a red light with a sound like fingernails dragging across a chalkboard, and they wince in tandem.

Bobby lifts a shoulder. "So maybe I'm not through fiddlin' with the engine just yet."

The older man's deliberately sheepish nature fails this time to bring a smile to Dean's face. The light turns green, and as the car accelerates through the intersection a plume of thick black smoke shoots out of the exhaust pipe and engulfs the vehicle. The dark vapor dissipates on the wind and Dean can't help the thoughts creeping in at the sight of it.

"You're thinkin' pretty loud over there, kiddo."

Dean exhales, props his elbow on the door and turns to Bobby. "You're doing something for my dad, right? Doing some research or something?"

"What do you mean?"

Dean rolls his eyes. "I mean he got lucky there was a ghost in town killing people, because we were coming here anyway, weren't we?"

Bobby clucks his tongue dismissively. "You know how your dad is. He's always workin' on a dozen things at once." Answering his question without actually answering it. It's almost like he learned from John Winchester. Or like John Winchester learned from him.

"Yeah." Dean looks over. "He's okay though, right?"

Bobby adjusts his hands around the steering wheel, shoots the briefest of glances across the car. He's adjusting his position between the two of them, too. "You're a good kid, Dean. Yeah, he's okay."

"You'll tell me when I need to know? If I need to know?"

"Yeah, of course." Blowing him off. Bobby cares, but sometimes Dean is unpleasantly reminded of just how similar he and his father really are. Or maybe it's just another way of letting Dean know he's getting warmer without saying enough words to flat-out betray his old friend.

"We're here." With a lurch and screech Bobby turns the clunker through a large set of ornate gates, into the cemetery. There's a lot of familiarity, sadness, and regret twisting Bobby's features, etching lines throughout his face, aging him years in the blink of an eye.

"What is it, Bobby?" Asks before he thinks, and it comes to Dean as he's tentatively saying the words. "Your wife?"

Bobby nods a quick, tight confirmation, pulling the sedan to a jerky stop at the edge of the narrow winding road cutting a path like a snake through rows of headstones. "Come here every year to visit Karen on her birthday. Sometimes it take a while, walking the grounds. Working up the nerve."

There's always been more to Bobby's story, a much darker history than seems appropriate for a man who comes off as so easy-going. There's something well-hidden in his past, some awful event that cost him his wife, a healthy liver, and created the hunter they know today. Some sizeable amount of guilt weighs on him like a ship's anchor. Dad knows, but much like his own secrets, he holds another man's as well as inside a locked safe.

Bobby shakes it off and exits the car, and Dean follows suit. The door creaks loudly enough, he's surprised he doesn't see the dead rising and waking around them. "Anyway, I've grown pretty familiar with the place. There're some older family plots over in the east corner."

"We're looking for Warren?" Dean clarifies, shuffling after Bobby, the duffel over his shoulder containing all the fixings for a good old-fashioned salt and burn, just in case they find the boy's grave here.

They make their way slowly through the newest additions, covered in candles and fresh flowers, toward the older headstones Bobby's pointed out, their progress hobbled by Dean's hobbling. He's slow-moving, limping tiredly after Bobby, the weight of the overstuffed bag further weighing down his already heavy steps.

Bobby pauses long enough for Dean to catch up, gently but firmly takes the bag's straps. "Here," he says, handing Dean the Maglite. "You man the flashlight." A kind pat on the shoulder, and then Bobby is moving on, eyes deliberately focused straight ahead.

The beam of Dean's light sweeps each row of headstones. His shuffling boot catches on a low, jagged chunk of weed-covered stone and he pitches forward, loses his flashlight and hits the deck in an awkward tumble across the dirt. He groans and brushes his palm across his chin where it skipped the ground. "Son of a bitch," he hisses at himself, embarrassed to make such a jackass of himself in front of Bobby.

The older man's calloused palm and outstretched fingers appear in front of Dean's face and he grips the hand, uses the assist to haul himself back to his feet. Bobby quirks an eyebrow. "Kid, you need a vacation."

"I don't really see that anytime in my near future, Bobby." Dean stoops to brush dirt from the knees of his jeans. Bobby claps him once more on the back and Dean shrugs off his hand, annoyed. "I'm good, Bobby. I'm not a kid."

Bobby nods with narrowed eyes. "Of course you're not. Let's see if we can find this boy's grave."

They continue on through rows of headstones, Dean watching the ground before him a little more closely. The stones gradually grow wider, taller, and more elaborate as they transition to the older family group plots, and the men slow their steps, guided by moonlight and Dean's flashlight. He almost doesn't notice when Bobby stops completely, nearly walks right into the other man's back. He redirects his flashlight beam to the space where Bobby's squinting into the dark. "Whatcha got, Bobby?"

"Here it is. Warren."

"Yeah, looks like we've got a dozen or so to choose from," Dean comments, swinging the beam of the flashlight over the faces of several headstones with the surname. He finds himself drifting away, taking the beam of light with him and leaving Bobby with only the moon to assist him.

Bobby joins him in the row, stoops and squints to read the names. He moves a clump of plant growth from a flat stone, rips away a sprig of the shrub and holds it in his hand. He seems concerned, but it looks like just another ugly plant.

Dean frowns. "What is this stuff?"

"S'wormwood."

"Wormwood?" Something about that is familiar, something from one of Dad's many, many lessons, but it's taking some work to remember anything interesting enough to stand out from a snoozefest botany lecture from when Dean was a kid. Action holds Dean's attention, not words. Certainly not plants.

Bobby sits back on his heels and nods, brow furrowed, thinking. "In lore, wormwood is a plant associated with restless spirits. It can summon them, can even cause them to rise and speak if it's…" He looks around, and Dean follows his eyes around the cemetery. Bobby smiles grimly as he spots a dark, matted pile of leaves in the near corner, nestled closely to the short stone wall marking the property line. Dean follows the gaze with the flashlight beam.

"Burned," Bobby finishes, standing and moving to the pile. He drops back into a squat with the wince of a man with bad knees. "Keep that light here for a minute, will ya?" The pop of his joints is audible as he reaches out to the charred remains. He pulls a few half-burned sprigs of wormwood from the perimeter of the burn pile. "Damn groundskeeper probably didn't know what he was pulling up. Or didn't know what it would do, at least."

Dean bumps the older man with his elbow. "Score one for the glorified babysitter, huh? Now we know who, why, and how. What are you thinking, Bobby?"

"I'm thinkin' no more speculatin.' This is definitely a vengeful spirit at work."

"So salt and burn, just like we thought." Dean drops to his good knee with a hand pressed to his side and pulls the necessary items from the bag. He slides a short shovel to Bobby across the firm ground.

"Anything about that seem, I dunno, a little too easy?"

Dean nods but isn't interested in complaining about it. He's sore, tired, and still a little hung over. At the moment, he's perfectly happy with easy. "I'll tell Dad." He pulls out his phone, presses the buttons to dial his father, who answers almost immediately, like the phone was in hand. "Hey, Dad – "

_"Dean. Tell Bobby this is a bust. There's nothing here, so I'm gonna – "_

"That's 'cause it's here. The grave, I mean. Bobby was right about the mother's family plot. And it's completely covered in wormwood. The groundskeeper was burning the stuff in a compost heap nearby, too." No harm in letting the old man think Dean already knew what he's talking about. "We're getting ready to dig now."

A long pause, which could mean any number of things. Dean would like to assume his father is waiting for Dean to continue. Except he's shared all the information he has to share.

_"Okay."_ John's tone of voice is a curious sigh of relief. _"Good, then. I'm on my way to you."_

John disconnects the call without another word and Dean is left holding a silent cell phone. He shakes his head, feeing a flash of angry heat but can't help but quirk a smile. Bobby deserves a damned cake for being right about this one. Because Dad was wrong.

That gives Dean pause. He's never before relished in such a thought. Dad was wrong? Where did that come from? That's a Sammy thought; it's not one of his.

Bobby whistles from a few feet away. "You gonna stand there and make an old man dig this hole all by himself?"

"No, I'm comin.'" Dean flexes his sore knee and tucks his phone back into his jacket pocket.

*************************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	9. Chapter 9

John's gotten used to long drives alone, doesn't really mind them so much anymore. Didn't know he'd been spending this much time in the Impala when he bought her on a whim, still trying to convince Mary's old man he had his life well enough together to take care of his baby girl. There were times it was certainly a different story when the boys were still actually boys, poking and picking and generally pissing each other off because they didn't have anything else to do. He loves those boys but, damn, they really knew how to grate some nerves.

It's the short drives that get him.

On a long drive, two-lane highway, hayfields on either side, and no speed limit for three more towns, there's sufficient time to muse on whichever spectacularly FUBAR situation John's shit-deep in, and to properly talk himself into or out of whatever it is he needs convincing of.

A short drive, by his own standards, an hour or less, there's no time for that. He has only the time enough to get worked up about a problem, or come to an impulsive decision, and not nearly enough time to come back down.

This drive to the cemetery across town would be considered a short trip on a child's tricycle, and by the time he's throwing the Impala into 'park' inside the squat iron gates he's convinced himself that standing next to his eldest son for much longer will do little more than seriously endanger his life. Sam made a wrong call and in a bad way, but maybe he's safer where he is now than he would be with John.

He does his part in scouring the headstones the litter the yards for the name Turner, but neither his head nor his heart is really in it, and John stomps back to the car frustrated and empty-handed. He hasn't been able to distract from the spreading roots of these thoughts he's had, and his foot is back to pressing on the gas pedal like a decision to run has already been made when his cell phone trills loudly, breaking through his reverie. _Dean._

John is short throughout the call but it isn't because of the kid, and when he snaps the phone shut he's almost exhausted himself from his musing, throws his head back against the stiff leather seatback.

Maybe it's not always the long drive and the time to think that brings John back down, maybe sometimes it's his boys.

****************************************************************************  
A duel of emotions collides within Dean as they stand over the freshly dug grave; he can't bring himself to force his father to be the one to set the boy's bones alight, but at the same time is struck with a sudden, violent and surprising desire to make John suffer.

At the last second he steps up and extends his hand. "Let me do it, Dad."

John turns to his son with a quirked brow, the same strange, analytical expression he'd worn in the morning when he was sitting across the room when Dean woke. He hesitates a moment, then hands over the book of matches.

_Goodbye and good riddance, little guy,_ Dean thinks, striking a single match across the rest of the row. Normally, he wouldn't have believed such a relatively small flame could carry out this task, even with the benefit of the lighter fluid, but this is a unique circumstance, a smaller set of bones than they're used to disposing of. He's transfixed by the flames, unable to tear his eyes away.

_You have to stop him. He's a bad, mean man._

A whisper on the wind as it whistles past his ear. The rustling leaves of the trees behind them. Just his imagination, and Dean shakes it off.

He's not sure how much time passes before his father's call – "Dean!" – breaks through in a tone and volume suggesting it's not the first attempt to get his attention, but more like the fifth.

"Yeah, Dad, sorry." Dean shakes his head and pulls his eyes away from the fire. Both his father and Bobby are staring at him with more than a little concern.

"What did you mean?" Bobby asks.

"Huh?"

"You said 'I will,'" John says.

Dean frowns. "I don't…sorry, I was spacing out, I guess. It was nothing. Just a little tired. I'm good."

A look passes between the two older men, a silent communication they seem to have no intent of bringing Dean in on.

They return to the house in two vehicles, but Dean rides with John this time, and the Impala's interior smells like a campfire. His eyes are still stinging from the smoke, and his heart is heavy from the physical act of the salt and burn. He's still trying to shake off the voice, the murmurs echoing in his head since they left the cemetery, in the car, on the street. He can't make the voice stop, can't put a stopper on the whispers.

John holds the front door open for him, gives him an appraising, sideways glance. "You good?"

Dean nods tightly as he passes. "Good."

John lets the door smack shut in its frame, then leans a hand on the counter. "Can I get a nightcap, Bob?"

"Sure, help yourself." Bobby shrugs out of his quilted down vest and drapes it over a hook on the coat rack. "Dean?"

"No. Thanks, Bobby, I'm okay." He can't stifle his yawn. "I think I'm gonna hit the head and then hit the hay."

"Yeah, you look a little peaked," Bobby comments, shooting a glance at John.

"S'been a long couple of weeks," John says needlessly, tilting his head. "Why don't you sleep in a bit tomorrow?"

Dean frowns, confused. Unless his father intends on ditching him here with Bobby for a while, this doesn't make sense. "You don't wanna hit the road first thing?"

John's expression softens, as much as it ever does. "Why don't you sleep in a bit tomorrow?" he repeats.

A tired, thankful grin stretches across Dean's face. God help him if a little weight on his shoulders doesn't melt away, too. "Yeah, okay. Sounds like a plan I can get behind."

He turns to head upstairs and, as always, the conversation doesn't stop simply because Dean leaves the room. They don't even wait for him to be properly out of earshot. Of course, as Bobby speaks up first, that's probably the point.

"That boy needs a break, John. Needs a real spot of rest." The clink of a bottle and glasses as the men settle down for that nightcap. And presumably, a deeper conversation than they feel Dean is capable of. Or at least invited to.

"There's no time for rest."

"The job's over," Bobby argues.

"The job's never over."

********************************************************************

Bobby stares in the squinty manner he has that means he's gone to thinking again, and John rolls his eyes, leans back in his chair and brings the drink to his lips. "You know, a man could die of old age, waiting on you to speak your mind, Singer."

And he takes even longer still, leaving John to swallow whiskey and listen to the thump of his heart and the crickets outside, Rumsfeld pacing on the porch with the steady thump of massive paws, a random whine of loneliness. _Damn dog could make any man think he's hearin' ghosts._

"You wouldn't be happy if the job was over, would you?" Bobby speaks up finally.

John swallows what's left of the whiskey, knows his glass wasn't anywhere near full enough for a conversation that begins this way. He knocks his knuckles against the tumbler, shoots it across the tabletop toward his host. "How do you mean?"

Bobby slides into the chair opposite him, holds his tongue until he's poured a refill and a door closes upstairs. Dean just might be moving even slower than they'd realized. "You've got an idea what you're goin' after, got me up all night makin' calls and pullin' materials for ya while you're sleepin' like a babe, and that's fine. That's what I'm here for." His drawl suggest otherwise, and he pauses for a drink of his own, so John mirrors his movements. "But is this even still about Mary, John? If you ever find…if you catch this thing and you kill it, you really gonna be done? Gonna pack it all away and be nothing more than a father to those boys?"

John raises his eyebrows, not caring for the implication. "I'm a father now."

Bobby chuckles in a way only he is permitted to do. "You're a lot of things now, whatever the job calls for. Whatever's needed."

"Whatever's needed," John agrees roughly. Sometimes it's best not to disagree with Bobby; he's a decent shot. Still, he can't help but add, "They're not boys anymore, Bob."

"You think there's an age a man stops needin' his father?"

John forces a false air of detachment into his tone when he responds, "I think you made the point before, the both of us aren't exactly the right men to be answering that question."

"So you do sometimes listen when I'm talkin.'"

"I'm not thinking beyond killing this thing, Bobby. But, no." John shakes his head. "No, when I do kill it, I won't be done."

Bobby nods slowly, almost sadly. He stares into the bottom of his glass, in a way that suggests there's no bottom at all. "Well, I'll have something for you by morning, get you on your way."

**********************************************************************

Unsurprisingly, Bobby is the first of the three men to wake in the morning. The past seven years or so, since he really managed to somehow unintentionally cement himself as a go-to research guru in their close-knit but ever-growing community of hunters, he's had to devote the majority of time for his so-called "day job" to the hours most closely surrounding sunrise and sunset. These days the junkyard is mostly a front, sure, to keep that pesky new deputy off his back, what with all of the fake credentials and identification he's moving out of the house like contraband, but he still loves his cars. Finds a bit of otherwise elusive solitude and peace of mind among the skeletons constructed of metal, plastic and leather. Spending time with objects that can't makes demands of him and aren't aiming to rip out his heart.

It's a muggy morning, the air hot and thick and threatening rain with low, dark clouds out in the East. Should hold out through most of the daylight hours, though, and John and Dean will beat the storm, they hit the road before lunchtime. The earlier the better, that's how the Winchesters always roll out of town. Not always with a proper farewell, either, just the books John's lifted that he decides he needs but can't be bothered to ask for.

Bobby works out on the gravel lot until the sun is bursting over the tops of the tree line, the unobstructed heat beating brutally on the back of his neck. A constant stream of sweat runs in a slow, tickling line beneath the collar of his sweatshirt and he swipes with annoyance at the spot with the greasy rag in his hand. That's his sign of a full morning's work well done. The phones are sure to start ringing any minute now, and he still needs to put together that folder for John.

Bobby straightens and turns toward the house. He laces his fingers together behind his back and stretches his spine, creaking its protest at being held at an odd angle while he was digging into the guts of the baby blue GMC. A shadow moving through the kitchen windows catches his eye. Someone's up, and he'd better get back up to the house and play a proper host, get some coffee on. Winchesters aren't the most pleasant men to converse with before they're a couple cups of caffeine in.

He enters the house through the back door, wiping grease from his hands onto a red shop towel. Even without central air, the temperature in the house is noticeably cooler than outside. Dean sits at the kitchen table, rigid posture, blank expression, hands flattened in the tabletop. The info he's collected for John is stacked next to Dean's hand, and Bobby would think the kid was just some Winchester-patented combination of pissed and concerned, but the papers don't look as though they've been touched.

"Hey, kid," Bobby greets with forced cheeriness. Something is off, a strangeness invading the room. "S'earlier than I expected to see you up and about. Thought your dad told you to sleep in a bit. How's the head this morning?"

"Fine. Good." Dean's voice is listless, devoid of emotion. He turns his head to look at Bobby and his eyes are sluggish in catching up. They seem unfocused.

Bobby nods slowly, continues wiping his hands. He cocks his head, studying Dean. It's been a long few weeks, or so he's been told, and can see it for himself in the darkening circles under Dean's eyes. "You want breakfast?"

The kid shakes his head.

"Coffee?"

"No, that's okay."

"Your dad up yet?"

Dean's features contort into an ugly grimace. He wipes it away as though by eraser, replacing it with the same blank expression he'd been wearing when Bobby entered the room. "No idea."

Bobby leans over the table, lowering himself to Dean's eye line. The kid's pupils remain sluggish in focusing, but when he does, it's like something inside him snaps back into place. Dean blinks hard, shakes his head. He wipes a hand roughly over his face. "Sorry, Bobby. Jesus. I don't know what's up with me this morning. Long few days, I guess."

Bobby places a firm, gentle hand on Dean's shoulder, gives him a squeeze. "Sometimes it takes a while for things to catch up to ya. You've had a hell of a time, way I hear it."

Dean brushes off the concern along with Bobby's hand. "I'm fine, Bobby. Really."

Bobby lets his hand drop, straightens slowly, casually shifting books and papers, makes it look like anxious cleaning instead concealing what John has so clearly stated he doesn't want Dean to know. "All right. Well, I'm gonna run into town, get some car parts."

Dean nods. "Back to the 'ol nine-to-five, huh, now that the job's done?"

"'Til the next one comes along. You need anything?"

Dean turns to him quizzically, looks like himself for the first time this morning. "Any car parts?"

Bobby chuckles. "Any anything."

"No, I'm okay."

Bobby pauses, a lingering look on Dean as he moves to leave the room. "All right."

**********************************************************************

John wakes late, with a heavy, strange feeling and a face warmed by the light of a sun that's already been up for hours. The uneasiness doesn't strike all of a sudden upon opening his eyes, but seems as though it's been around a while, gotten cozy and found a way to permeate each layer of sleep to rouse him, to warn _something isn't right here._

He lays still and quiet, breathing the emotion out of the moment, and takes quick, professionally-distant stock of the situation. Beside him, the other twin bed is empty, unmade. No sight of or sound from his son. It's not necessarily an immediate concern, but it is uncommon for Dean to sneak out of a room without John noticing. It's also just as uncommon for John to sleep this late into the day. He can't put his finger on anything specifically wrong, but he has a nagging gut instinct of something left unfinished.

Exhausted more in his mind than his body, John had fallen into bed fully clothed, not bothering with anything more than toeing off his shoes. He trusts his instinct and forgoes the morning routine of a shower and shave, pauses only long enough to pull on his boots before he stands, twisting and bending quickly to work out the overnight kinks of a body beginning to show its mileage. Stiff muscles are looking to become friends, lingering throughout his body and reminding him in no uncertain terms that he's not nearly as young as he used to be.

It's quiet. Too quiet. John eyes the pistol on the bureau top, fingers flinching in that direction, but he clenches them into a fist, refusing to believe there's any need for the defense of a firearm here in Bobby's house with only his old friend and son sharing the space. Also, not trusting himself with a gun in his hand considering it's supposed to be just the three of them. If the need arises to defend himself, he'll do so like a Marine.

The fine hairs on the back of John's neck rise as he descends the staircase, and he has a fleeting sense of regret, having left the gun behind in the room. Because something unfamiliar is in the house with them, something possibly dangerous. His boot hits the dark, dusty hardwood floor and a chill cuts through him. "Bobby? Dean?"

John rounds the corner into the study and finds Dean standing at the opposite end of the room, under the archway connecting to the kitchen, backlit by a wash of late morning sunlight. The resulting shadows make it difficult to read his expression, but he seems unsteady on his feet, shaky and pale and on the verge of a sudden collapse to the hard floor.

"Hey, kiddo." Concern draws John nearer, a couple of heavy, swift steps that come to an abrupt stop as Dean raises his head to lock eyes with his father.

He's found the source of his uneasiness, and it's something right here, something within his son.

Dean's eyes are glazed over. Not the now-familiar drunk-glazed, but psycho antisocial serial killer glazed, and John brings an arm up just in time to counter the attack his instincts as his father assured him wasn't coming, but his reflexes as a hunter warned him was.

His forearm connects hard with Dean's, and he grits his teeth as Dean uses all of his weight in an attempt to drive a previously concealed knife hilt-deep into his John's face. The father within him wars with the hunter, and when Dean lets out an unholy roar and forces the knife down against John's arm, the hunter wins. The blade blazes a trail of fire across his forearm, but he can't allow Dean, or whatever's controlling him, to overtake him now.

John twists to grip awkwardly and painfully on Dean's knife arm. His right hand is fisted in the collar of Dean's shirt and he uses the leverage of his hold to get a knee up in his stomach. Dean collapses in the middle and John plants a foot in the flat of his son's gut, shoves out with enough force to send him staggering into the bookcase across the room.

Dean's foot catches on a bunch in the area rug and he stumbles on the way down. The back of his head strikes the middle shelf with a _crack_ that turns John's stomach. The force of it is enough to knock a line of sturdy hardcover books sideways. Dean's dazed and slow-moving on the floor but it won't last. His fingers are already blindly clawing at the hardwood, searching for his dislodged blade.

John's left arm has gone quite rapidly from fire to ice and hangs numbly at his side, blood slipping in thick drops to soundlessly spot the rug. Dean has youth and stamina in his corner, not to mention some sort of supernatural driving force. He'll recover quickly and mount another attack, and John knows he has to put him down before that happens.

John stalks a cautious circle around Dean, mindful to keep his injured arm on the far side of his son. It's unclear whether Dean has any idea what's happening; his eyes won't focus and his movements are sluggish enough to cause John's mind, well-weathered with experience and rifling at warp-speed through the cryptic warnings and events of the past few weeks, to jump to the thought of possession. He dismisses the idea quickly for a much simpler explanation: last night's salt and burn of little Isaiah Turner's bones was for naught, and the spirit has decided to take the attempt personally. He swallows hard and reassures himself that's all this is, because Dean doesn't fit the spirit's M.O.

Not Dean.

As he and his son stalk each other, it's not immediately clear who is hunter and whom prey, but there's a hesitation in Dean's step and John prays that whatever's happening, his boy is fighting it. Then Dean lunges, face twisted with such hatred and fury he very well looks dangerous enough to justify what John does next.

He sidesteps the clumsy attack with ease and expertly sweeps Dean's legs out from under him. The kid hits the floor hard, unforgiving boards under a thin carpet. This recovery is even more sluggish than the last, and John takes full advantage, slides behind Dean and gets him snug in a sleeper hold. His boy struggles mightily, slamming John into the wall. Blood runs warm and steady from the knife wound on his arm, washing over both of them.

"Don't fight it, Dean." John bites down hard on his bottom lip as Dean's grunts and struggles gradually weaken, and come to a stop as he gives up on consciousness. His body relaxes, a suddenly limp, heavy burden, and John slips down the wall until he thuds finally to the floor, licking away the coppery tang of blood from his lower lip. He gives Dean a tired, affectionate pat on the cheek and releases him for a moment to spill into a pile of loose limbs.

John reaches out and gingerly presses two fingers to his son's throat, comforting himself with the steady thrum of a heartbeat there. He lets his head fall back against the wall, a hand keeping pressure over the bleeding cut on his arm, not taking his eyes off of Dean.

A thunder of footsteps approaches and John wearily rolls his eyes. He's not quite sure if Bobby's coming late to the party or, as always, if he's right on cue. His free hand instinctively inches closer to where Dean lies motionless across his legs.

Bobby comes to a comically sudden stop in the doorway, a smear of engine oil swiped across his face. Mouth open, he takes in the torn apart room, John slumped bleeding against the wall, and Dean sprawled unconscious across his lap. A gray plastic grocery bag with the logo of some local hardware store swishes against the leg of his jeans. "D'I miss somethin'?"

"Can it, Singer."

"What the hell happened?"

"Looks like our ghost isn't resting quite as peacefully as we would have hoped. Dean came at me with a knife." John narrows his eyes. "It's awfully nice of you to stop by."

"You know I like to get an early start out in the yard. Had to run out and…" Bobby looks sheepish and sets the bag aside. He takes a step forward, thinks better of it and keeps his distance after one look at John's face. "You don't think this is a little extreme?"

"He was trying to kill me, Bobby. You'da done the same." _You DID do the same._ The retort is on his tongue and John bites down to keep from saying the words. Bobby's only concerned for the both of them, hasn't done anything to deserve that low a blow.

Bobby pulls a handkerchief from the back pocket of his jeans and offers it to John with a nod at his arm. "That looks bad."

"Feels like a paper cut." John lays the kerchief across the cut but doesn't put additional pressure on the wound. It's not gonna kill him, and he has more pressing matters demanding attention. He tries to rouse Dean, squeezing and shaking his shoulder as discretely as possible, but his boy doesn't move.

"You stubborn jackass." Bobby retreats to the kitchen and returns with a battered tin. He sighs and crouches next to John, thankfully hasn't made any move to take Dean from his lap. John wouldn't give him up, not until he wakes. Bobby pops open the kit, rummaging for a proper bandage. "So, what happened?"

John leans forward, offering his arm but avoiding eye contact. Bobby has a tendency to see the things you'd like to keep hidden. "Like I said, he came at me with a knife. Tagged me, but I put him down before it happened again."

Bobby's brows come together as he pulls hard enough on John's arm to draw a wince. _Jesus, Singer, gentle. I'm bleedin' here._

"Put him down?" Bobby spits, a mix of concern and disdain unique to the weathered hunter.

"He was trying to kill me," John repeats, something he wouldn't think needs repeating, and not a thought he's looking to dwell on. "And I know it was just that ghost gettin' in his head, but I can't keep anyone else from being hurt when my backup is aiming to gut me like a fish." John's voice rises in tandem with his defenses. He shouldn't have to explain himself like this to someone who's made all the same decisions he has.

"We salted and burned the bones, John. Isaiah's spirit should be at rest."

"Well, obviously you missed something," John snaps, his grip on Dean's shoulder tightening. "We missed something," he amends quickly, so as not to insult the man currently hard at work preventing John from needing a transfusion.

Bobby raises his eyebrows approvingly, presses a square of gauze to John's arm. "Let's get that kid someplace more comfortable."

John stops him, grips Bobby's arm nearly as tightly as his clutch on his son. "Not so fast. We don't know that he isn't going to go homicidal again as soon as he wakes up." He tilts his head, regards the room. "Bring me that chair. And find me some kind of rope."

*********************************************************************

Dean's head hurts enough, it's entirely possible the pain alone is what brings him around. A blossoming pulse of agony at the base of his skull, a patch of heat like he's laid back against a hot stovetop. He groans and shifts, finding his limbs stiff, slow to respond, and surprisingly restrained. His hands are bound securely but not too tightly behind his back with something thin, like a shoelace. His pounding head clears slightly and he discovers he's tied to a chair in the middle of Bobby's living room, staring down at a messy pile of books, a stack forcefully knocked to its side atop a rug shoved off-center. One corner is bunched against the wall like a mid-step caterpillar.

John's coming into the room, patting a large bandage down on his forearm. "Morning, Sunshine," he says drily, without looking up. He flexes his fingers with a wince. "How's the head?"

"Okay," Dean lies, feeling the pulse of his heart in his eyeballs. "Dad…" he starts, but he doesn't know where to go from there. The beginning of the excuse lies uselessly between them.

John, it turns out, does know where to go. "Thought I told you to watch out for him."

Dean turns his eyes downward, wrinkles his nose at a few stiff, red spots of drying blood on his shirtfront. He doesn't feel fresh pain anywhere other than his head, matches the blood to the bandage on his father's arm. His heart drops, and he swallows. "We did the salt and burn…I figured it was…I thought it was all clear."

"Looks like you thought wrong." John sits on the edge of the desk, hands resting lightly on his thighs. For show, Dean knows. He's tense, in attack position.

Dean feels a muscle in his jaw jump, a flush of heat in his cheeks, but doesn't avert his eyes. "Yes, sir."

"Or do you really just want to kill me?"

Dean squirms uncomfortably, laces pinching his wrists. "No."

John squints with his arms crossed, staring for a long moment. Dean has to look away now, lets his eyes stray guiltily to the bandage on his father's arm, a wound from the knife he'd wielded. "So what the hell happened?"

"Wha – Dad…"

"No, Dean. You're the best eye witness we're gonna get to these killings, and we obviously missed something. You need to tell me what happened. What made you do it?"

Guilt pressing him like a rock on his chest, Dean resists. "I don't…"

John slaps a heavy palm on the desktop. "Damn it, Dean, you could have killed me! I'm done playing games. What did you hear? What did you see?"

Dean bites his lip, thinking, remembering. Putting days' worth of thoughts and feelings into context. The other night, with the journal and the whiskey… "It was a kid," he says finally. "I saw a kid."

"Who? Isaiah Turner?"

Dean nods. "Earlier this morning."

"Was this the only time you saw him?"

Dean knows his face gives him away immediately. There's no point in lying now. "No."

"No?" John straightens, shifts his weight on the desk but doesn't rise. "You've seen him before?"

This is the same line of leading questions John had always given Sammy; questions he knows the answers to already. Dean frowns, feeling like he's being played. "Just once." He swallows. "Two nights ago."

John's eyes sharpen. There's something there, but Dean guesses it could be something as simple as his own guilt. "What happened?"

"Nothing, he was just…there. Here. In the room with me."

"And you didn't think that was something worth mentioning?"

Dean squirms. "Where's Bobby?"

"Fetching some supplies. Answer me."

An unfamiliar anger heats his chest. Like Dad's never kept anything a secret. "It was late, and dark, and I, uh…wasn't thinkin' straight. Thought it was Sammy. Thought I was just…seein' things."

"I remember. You'd been drinking."

Dean squints. "Yes, sir."

"And today? What did he say to you?"

Dean shakes his head roughly, sending a spike of pain through his skull. "I don't remember – "

"Then think harder!" John shouts, coming off of the desk and stepping forward.

It's only his father but Dean pulls away on instinct, mashing against the chair, straining his arms and twisting his wrists.

John stops a mere foot from the chair, leans down to meet Dean's eyes. "Dean, you almost killed me tonight. That's exactly this spirit's M.O. Whatever's been happening to these boys happened to you, except you've been trained to deal with this. So I need you to _think harder._ "

Dean nods slowly. He shifts in the chair, restraints biting into the tender skin of the undersides of his wrists. "I, uh, remember getting angry. Like, really angry." He swallows. "With you."

"You've been pissy with me for months, Dean. You're gonna have to do better than that."

Dean grinds his teeth, his cheeks flushing, this particular heat an unassisted flare of anger directed towards his father. "It was like remembering and feeling everything that's ever made me angry, all at once."

John nods. "Okay. Now we're getting somewhere. That lines up with fathers being attacked for things they did years ago." He walks a slow circuit of the room. "How're you feeling now? Aside from the goose egg."

Dean shrugs. "Fine. Normal, I guess."

"No homicidal thoughts? Even when I was yellin' just now?"

"No."

"Temporary effect, just like the others. This fits the pattern exactly, so this still has to be the Turner kid, right?"

_He thought maybe it was just me?_ No room here to be offended, Dean nods his reluctant confirmation. "It was him."

"Well, if the salt and burn didn't work, then we need to dig deeper into the story. Something, some physical remain of the boy is keeping him from moving on." John stops his pacing and turns to face Dean, his face a stoic mask. "If I let you out of that chair, you're not going to try to kill me, are you?"

Dean feels the blood rush to his cheeks. "No, sir."

John nods and moves behind him, behind the chair. Dean tenses, then feels the restraints fall away. He was right, sees a pair of dirty old shoelaces in his dad's hands. He tentatively rotates his arms, careful not to make any quick, rash movements near his father right now. Can't ever forget the man was a Marine even before he was a hunter.

Dean slowly moves his arms around to rest on his thighs, studying the abrasions encircling his wrists. _Gentle as ever, Dad._ Though, to be fair, the damage is owing more to his own thrashing about than from the knots his father tied.

John stays behind him, leaving Dean feeling very uneasy. "Dad…what…" Dean swallows. "What're we gonna do now?"

"Now I'm gonna put this kid to rest." John's large, rough hand falls heavily on Dean's shoulder in a gesture he can't easily interpret. "For good."

The persistent pounding in Dean's head isn't really helping in the department of quick-thinking. It takes a moment for him to even muster a hesitant, "Okay. I'll come with you."

John's fingers squeeze gently, almost affectionately at the tense muscle above his collarbone. "Not this time, kid." Then he pinches the joint of his neck and shoulder with sudden, surprising force.

A lance of icy pain shoots through Dean. "Dad, wha – ow!"

And then the lights go out.

********************************************************************

John squints, his uninjured arm keeping a firm grip on Dean's shoulder as his head falls forward, chin coming to rest on his chest. His fingers shift just enough to feel out a strong, steady pulse beneath his jaw, and he breathes a slow sigh of relief. "Sorry, kiddo, but I'm gonna need you to sit this one out."

He drags Dean's limp arm over his shoulder and hauls him up from the chair with a grunt. He's spent years encouraging Dean to bulk up, gain muscle mass, but regrets it for the moment as he heaves his heavy son across the room to the couch. He frowns and hastily swipes stray pages from the cushions. They float to the floor in a messy disarray as John lets Dean fall to the couch as gently as possible.

Bobby's always had a knack for horrible timing. He enters the room with a clear plastic grocery bag as John is arranging Dean's limbs into a more comfortable position. He withdraws his hands before Bobby raises his eyes. "Got those things for your arm." His beady eyes never stray from Dean's prone form. "Kid okay?"

John smiles, or attempts to. "Yeah, just needs rest."

"Sure, sure." Bobby gestures with the bag. "Why don't you let me fix that arm up proper?"

John winces, sneaks a glance at his watch. "Yeah, if you can make it quick. I want this over."

"Well, you won't do much good bleedin' out like a stuck pig." Bobby guides him to the kitchen table, to where he puts out an array of first aid supplies like a fucking Sunday brunch buffet.

John sits tensely on the edge of a chair and stretches his arm out for his friend, who carefully peels away the bit of gauze he'd applied earlier.

Bobby _tsks._ "Yeah, he gotcha good." Funny how he doesn't seem all that concerned about it. He rotates John's arm, eliciting a wince, but confirms the wound isn't dangerously deep. "No nerve damage."

He meets John's eyes and John nods in agreement.

Bobby settles back in his chair. "I'll stitch it up."

John shoots a glance in the direction of the other room. He feels no guilt over what he's done, but all the same, he'd rather not be around when Dean comes to. More than anything, he doesn't want to chance Dean following him to the Turner house. "Okay. Hurry."

Bobby sighs and nods. "Yeah, sure."

"Talk to me about the house. Can we get in?"

Bobby slips a glass of whiskey into his good hand. "Easily enough, I'd assume. S'been abandoned ever since Turner went off to prison for the murder. City tried to auction it off, but I guess there were no takers."

"On a house where a young boy died slowly and horribly of neglect?" John snorts, tosses back the drink too quickly. He winces, drops the glass to the table. "I'd be surprised if there were. Can you get me the address?"

Bobby wipes roughly at the laceration with an antiseptic wipe, sending a sharp sting beneath John's skin, cutting a hiss through his teeth. "What's that?" he asks, distracted or stalling.

"The address of Turner's house, where they found the kid's body. The same house we've been talking about this whole time."

Bobby sighs, his head bobbing knowingly, maybe relenting. "You're thinkin' if the usual salt and burn gig didn't work then there must be something left behind."

John grimaces as Bobby's curved needle pierces his skin. First one's the worst one. "Yeah."

"I taught you that."

"Yeah, I know."

"I can get you the address, but I'm going with you."

"No, I need you to stay here with Dean."

"You need backup, John, and he's not a child – "

_He's_ my _child._ "No," John argues, "he's a ticking time bomb, Bobby. I don't have time to argue this with you. This was my hunt, and we're going to do things my way."

"Damn it, John, will you stop and think about what's important for just one minute? This spirit you're after has a very specific M.O."

John sucks in a breath, tells himself that he believes the words he's about to say. "Dean doesn't fit the M.O. He was just an opportunity to get to me. To stop me."

"You are the most stubborn a jackass there ever was. And I don't think you believe a damn word you're sayin,' John."

"Bobby, why and how are very low on my list of priorities right now. I'm more worried about when."

"What?"

"He's a damn sleeper, Bobby!" John pulls his arm away from his friend, pats down a bandage over the stitches himself. "That kid's gotten into his head, and we don't know what's going to set him off or when, but we do know he's going to keep trying to kill me until I take care of this spirit for good. Now, can you get me that address or not?"

Bobby sits back is his chair, staring down at the thin wicks of drying blood on his fingertips. "Yeah. I can get it."

**********************************************************************

Dean's senses come back in stages. Hearing is first: Bobby puttering around in the kitchen, the rubber soles of his boots squeaking occasionally on the linoleum. Running water from the tap, the refrigerator door opening and closing, cabinet doors doing the same. Bobby's moved on from drink, and he's going to throw food at the problem.

Speaking of the problem…pain is next. An overload of all of his nerve endings, the relentless gnaw of bruises. Old, new, everywhere. Familiar tenderness in his ribs and a fresh ache in his back, aggravated by his currently horizontal position. The healing wound in his side might as well be minutes old as opposed to days. A new persistent throb at the base of his neck, the curve of his shoulder. He's convinced the pounding in his head can only be exacerbated by opening his eyes, so he decides to leave them closed for the time being, spends a moment listening to Bobby fiddle around like an old housewife.

His head aches, beats a steady rhythm to match the pounding of his heart. Dean shifts his weight, feels the gap between the cushions and recognizes the texture of the couch against the exposed skin of his arms.

_Dad._

Dean's eyes snap open and he struggles to rise, moving slowly from the injuries piling on like a toddler's building blocks. It's not too long to go before one hit is one too many. He braces himself with an arm over the back of the sofa and swings his legs around. A boot connects with a wayward stack of thick, hardbound books and sends them thudding across the wooden floorboards. Every minute sound echoes in Dean's throbbing head like a clanging gong.

Bobby leans in the doorway, drying a cloudy glass with a blue and white checked dishtowel. "Short nap," he comments. "Feelin' any better?"

_Nap?_ Dean shakes his head, then after that proves to be a really horrible idea, drops it into his hands. "Not really, no."

"Sorry to say I missed the show, but it was a hell of an after-party."

"Yeah, sorry, I don't…" Dean brings his head up, looks wildly around the room. "Where's my dad?"

"He's trying out Plan B. Obviously, burnin' the bones didn't have the desired effect so he's inspecting the old house for any physical remains tyin' the spirit to the house. Blood, or tissue, or…"

"Hair. Yeah, yeah." Dean stands quickly. Also not an A-plus sort of idea. "Bobby, this kid really doesn't like my dad."

Bobby chuckles. "Must've met him then."

"I'm serious, Bobby. He's going to get himself killed."

"Well, he's under the impression YOU'RE gonna get himself killed."

"Bobby, this kid is dangerous. He's a violent spirit with a chip on his shoulder the size of a redwood, who's already tried once to take my dad out of the picture. It has to be because he knows we're trying to put him to rest."

Bobby tosses the towel down to the tabletop. "Well, you're not wrong." He puts his hands on his hips and sighs.

"He needs backup. We've got to get to that house." Dean winces, moves to rub that tender spot at his collarbone.

Bobby's eyes narrow at the motion and he sighs. "Listen, Dean. Your old man, he, uh, he just…"

Dean blinks wearily. "Yeah, Bobby, how about you don't make excuses for him anymore, and neither will I?"

Bobby stares a moment, then cracks a small, sad smile. "Deal."

*********************************************************************

From the curb at the end of a long, winding gravel drive, the house appears just as quiet and calm as any other night there aren't drunk or stupid teenagers sneaking inside to get high. Two levels, including the cellar, built of wood and cinder block with uneven shutters hanging over the windows, the wood no longer holding any trace of what paint job may have been. From the black and white photographs from the papers the day after the boy was found, it's difficult to deduce their original color. Probably some warm hue lending a homier, more welcoming feel to the house than it presently exudes. It was never anything fancy and the structure is showing its years in a bad way.

Blocks have fallen from the outer walls, mortar suffering the elements, wearing away and leaving them loose and vulnerable, exposing insulation and plywood. There have been camping tents made of sturdier stuff. The roof wasn't constructed for the snow weight it eventually carried, wasn't slanted to a degree allowing for proper runoff. Exposure to such excessive moisture and weight has left the covering fallen in chunks to the interior of the home, and eternally weak, at constant threat of collapse everywhere else.

The gathering storm clouds have grown darker, the first raindrops of the night speckling the road and sidewalk leading to the porch, a wet, cold nuisance but still just a sprinkle.

John violently throws the car into 'park', rimming the curb with a metallic spin that causes him to cringe. It'll leave a mark, a scar on something he's spent more than half his life keeping in pristine condition.

A fairly new strip of police tape is strung across the front door, but remnants of older police lines, ropes and yellow ribbons dirty and shredded litter the front porch. Years' worth. John rips the tape away easily and tosses it aside, adding to the pile.

The front door is already hanging from one hinge; John rears back and kicks it in with enough force to knock it to the floor completely, taking a no-nonsense approach to what remains of this job. A cloud of dust plumes upward as the old wood splits down the middle from an old, deep crack.

He shouldn't have let things get this far. Had an itch, of course, that he knew where this was headed but needed to see the hand played out. Was arrogant, didn't want to believe Dean was harboring enough anger or resentment for this spirit to latch onto. That, too, was a show of arrogance. But it's not arrogant to say without a shred of doubt Dean will be heading this way as soon as he wakes. There isn't time to spare being gentle and slow-moving about this. John is swallowed by the remains of the house as he crosses the threshold and steps swiftly down the hall.

Others would explore but John doesn't possess much curiosity, and he trusts his gut to tell him where he needs to be, moves in the direction he expects to lead him to the cellar. Rotted boards creak and buckle underfoot, but hold his weight. His shotgun hangs loosely at his side, loaded with rock salt-packed shells. Proud of Dean for the idea, annoyed he didn't think it up himself.

His senses are on high-alert for the typical warning shots fired by a poltergeist or otherwise violent spirit. A noticeable drop in air temperature, that's the first to manifest, easiest to pick up. Of course, it's difficult for John to distinguish a ghostly chill from the natural dip in stormy air outside the house, lacking roof cover in sizeable pieces. He exhales forcefully through his mouth, eyes alert and searching for the telltale moisture cloud. There isn't one, and his hand twitches in the direction of the EMF detector in his jacket pocket.

John shifts the grip of his shotgun from both hands to one, testing the cellar door with his right. The knob turns in his hand but the door won't budge. Stuck shut, but not locked. _That's something._ The wood has swollen and gotten caught in the frame, and that's a problem he's quick to solve.

He doesn't put the gun, his only protection, aside but pulls back his foot. It takes three solid kicks before the frame splinters and the door pops inward a few inches. Irritated, John shoves his shoulder into the door and muscles his way onto the narrow landing, catching himself with his free hand against cool stone before taking a header into the basement. An overwhelming stench of wood rot overtakes him, and he takes a few slow breaths through his mouth before pressing on. The flashlight's beam reveals a steep, narrow staircase, and he begins his cautious descent down creaky, uneven steps. Some aren't even wide enough to bear the full length of his boot, the toe hanging over the edge. There's a thin layer of carpeting, brown in color or matted with mud.

At the bottom of the staircase John drops his bag to the floor and realizes this mission isn't going to be as easy as he'd hoped. The basement easily covers the same square footage as the main floor of the house, divided into multiple rooms. Directly across from the stairs is a door, and an open space off to the right. He wanders cautiously in that direction, the beam of his light revealing a second living room of sorts, a dusty tattered couch pointed at a strangely located fireplace. John shakes his head. This really would have been a nice home. He moves back to the door at the foot of the stairs, ajar a few inches. His footsteps echo in the empty subterranean room.

*********************************************************************

_To be continued..._


	10. Chapter 10

The Turner house is nearly exactly what Bobby's picture had suggested, with the exception of a few less walls and roof beams than when the photograph had been taken in the seventies, weakened supports that have eroded and fallen prey to the years that have passed.

Beneath a steady rainfall they climb the steps to the sagging front porch and enter the house's skeleton through an open archway where the front door used to be.

"Homey," Bobby comments drily, taking cautious steps like the floorboards are in immediate danger of shattering like a thin sheet of ice under his boots.

Probably not a terrible idea, and Dean treads just as lightly as he follows. "Cellar?" He turns to Bobby for confirmation.

The older hunter nods. "That'd be my guess. S'where the boy died."

"Dad?" Dean calls tentatively, not wanting to draw any unwanted attention to the fact of their arrival. He has a firm grip on the stock of the double-barrel. The dark wood is smooth from heavy use, worn into the shape of his palm, a comfort to have in hand.

The inky blackness of an early, stormy nightfall and the collapsed, damaged walls make the house seem bigger than it actually is, and difficult to navigate. There's no response from his father but with the Impala parked at the curb it's obvious he's here. Or was. "Dad?" he tries again, louder.

Bobby grabs his upper arm, firmly but not ungently. Dean turns to him, sees his eyebrows pulled together in concern.

"I'm thinkin' stealth is our best option here, Dean," he cautions quietly.

Dean nods, feeling foolish and anxious, and turns back toward the narrow hallway. He steps gingerly around rotted, charred pieces of fallen roof beam, water-damaged and moldy chunks of broken ceiling. A weak spot in the floorboards splinters like glass under Dean's boot, sinking him in the blink of an eye up to his knee.

Bobby rushes up behind him and quickly, quietly helps him to extricate himself. He grips Dean by the back of the neck. "You okay?"

It wasn't a particularly jarring impact, but Dean's ears are nonetheless ringing. He's unhurt but shaky, embarrassed. He nods and collects the gun that had slipped from his grasp.

Bobby pulls a flashlight from an inside coat pocket and illuminates the way ahead. "Let's find the way to the cellar. And John."

Dean steps aside and lets Bobby take the lead, pauses a moment to collect himself.

"I don't hear John anywhere. You?"

Dean shakes his head, steadying himself against a wall as the motion nearly sends him to the floor. "No."

Bobby doesn't seem to notice. "S'that a bit out of the ordinary? Your dad ain't exactly a quiet sort of man."

Dean doesn't hear his father, but he does hear something. Light, high-pitched, a voice emerging from the lingering ringing in his head. It's startlingly, frighteningly familiar. "Bobby," he whispers, wanting to warn his friend.

Bobby doesn't hear him, though, turning a corner toward the heart of the house.

The chill falls over Dean like a curtain of rain. He shivers, tenses reflexively, ears perked.

_"The mean man is in the basement."_

Nothing louder than a whisper of wind whistling through the house, just like in the cemetery, and it stops Dean in his tracks. He stands immobile, frozen, unable to do anything to prevent the ghost of this boy from sliding into his head like a wisp of smoke under a closed door.

His mind goes blank.

**************************************************************************

Bobby's been in this game long enough to sense when something's gone sideways behind him.

He pauses at the cellar door, seemingly the only one in the house that has remained intact, shotgun at the ready. He still can't hear John in the house, which is concerning enough, but now he can no longer hear Dean. "Dean?"

No answer from the kid. _Ah, damn it all to hell._ Sometimes he really hates being right.

Bobby rotates slowly in the narrow hallway, lowering the gun but ready for anything he may find himself faced with.

Except an empty hallway where Dean should be.

"Dean?" Bobby calls again, taking a step back, eyes as alert in the dark as possible. His ears perk; the sounds a shotgun makes are unmistakable, to a hunter of any kind. He ducks just as the wall behind him explodes with pellets of rock salt. _Better'n buckshot._

He's straightening, working to get his bearings, when Dean comes at him from the side.

****************************************************************************

The presence he's sensing is a familiar yet threatening one, and John's next movements are dictated solely by reflex. There isn't time for brains, or interpretation. The steps creak behind him and on instinct that danger is closing in he spins, has a boot planted in a way that means business, square in Dean's middle before he realizes it was his son who was coming up behind him.

Dean cries out at he's shoved backwards, flailing as his feet slip away, as his back and shoulders impact the stairs, but he manages to secure a grip on the thin railing as he goes down, likely saving himself a cracked vertebrae. He sags at an awkward angle against the wall, hand clutching the railing above his head like a lifeline.

Remorse falls over John like a heavy wool blanket. Fumbling for words, for an appropriate apology, he drops his shoulder and moves toward his son. Dean pulls away, wincing as the edge of the steps dig into his back.

"Dad?" Dean croaks, confused and wheezing and attempting to curl to his side, where John's boot had connected.

"Dean, I – "

Like a small tornado has whipped past, John is ripped away from his son without warning and face-planted into the damp concrete floor. Ears ringing, he shoves up on his elbows. Caught off-guard but never with his pants completely down, experience and an iron-clad grip kept the shotgun in hand. He pulls himself to his feet, spits blood from a split lip to the side and grins, lining up a shot on the specter across the basement. _Not so stealthy, kid._ "I've got you now."

Looking over John's head, the dead boy's eyes sparkle with a disturbing liveliness. With intent. It's unsettling, how much he resembles a much younger Sam. _"Not if he gets you first."_

He's got a finger on the trigger, twitching, knowing he's damn close to ending this, but there's something about the confident, fearless look in the spirit's eye that causes John's shoulder to drop. Despite his better judgment he turns just enough to follow the boy's line of sight. Behind him, Dean wavers where he's now standing at the foot of the staircase, blinking hard like the room is coming in and out of focus.

_Aw, hell, Dean._ John doesn't dare take his eyes off of his boy, watching his hands. "Leave him alone." There's no response, and his eyes slide to the side. The ghost is gone.

_"You don't have to listen to his lies anymore. You don't have to let him hurt you anymore."_

John's head snaps back. Little Isaiah is now standing next to Dean, one translucent pearly hand resting lightly on his son's forearm. He's speaking to Dean in a low, soothing tone, and Dean twitches as though electrically shocked, shakes his head. He winces, takes a couple of shaky steps away from the ghost with a hand held out for balance.

_That's it, Dean-o. Give 'im hell._ "I'd never hurt him." John swallows. _Well, that's just not as true as it used to be, is it?_

Cold dead eyes meet his, and blue lips twist into a knowing grin. _"Maybe not with your fists. Maybe not on purpose."_

John's attention is split, and in a dark blur illuminated by a flash of lightning Dean advances quicker than he should be currently capable of, spins and throws an elbow back, knocks John in the chin and he staggers backward. He gets another jab in under his left eye before John's able to get a gentle but firm grip on his shoulders and shove him away. He brings a hand up to his throbbing jaw. "Damn it, Dean! Enough with this shit!"

Dean brings his fists up in an offensive fighting stance. His wounded body is tense, a coiled spring ready to come loose for a spot of violence, but his green eyes remain bright and shifty, uncertain of what he's doing.

_Wishful thinking, Winchester._ Dean may very well know exactly what he's doing. John works his sore jaw and tucks his gun away, wanting it out of play. He raises his hands in front of him. "Son, I want you to listen to me. Whatever that boy's been telling you, it's bullshit. All of it. You KNOW that."

Dean shakes his head like he has water in his ears. He blinks hard and meets John's eyes in a comforting moment of clarity, and lowers his fisted hands. "Dad?"

John won't allow himself a sigh of relief, not yet. Dean's eyes are clear but he's got his head cocked, listening to something. To someone. "Dean!" John barks, drawing his son's attention back. "Eyes on me." _Kid never should have come here._

John blinks and suddenly he's there, the boy, Isaiah. The spirit responsible for this entire mess. "Get away from my son," John growls, reaching once again for the worn stock of his shotgun. He wants to blast this spook into next Wednesday for manipulating his boy, for pumping him full of these lies and bullshit.

_"I only told him what he already knew. Like all of them."_

"Horse shit." He brings the gun back up. "Back away. Now." He would never, has never given a spook this kind of warning, this amount of time to heed his words, but the thing is still awfully close to Dean and from this range even the rock salt will hurt like hell. Otherwise he would have already pulled the trigger.

Suddenly Dean rushes him like a linebacker, drives John back into a support beam with enough force to rattle the house's skeletal remains. His grip on the gun finally fails, and the weapon clatters to the concrete.

"Damn it, Dean, you're going to bring this whole goddamned house down on us!"

"You made Sammy leave!" Dean yells, taking a clumsy, drunken swing that John evades easily. "He's the only person who's always been there for me. What am I supposed to do now, Dad?"

_Oh, for the love of…_ "Dean! Dean, listen to me!" John pushes Dean away, steps forward and grabs him roughly by the shoulders, shakes his son until he meets his eyes. _That's it, eyes on me. Keep 'em on me._ "I know you're upset, kid. And I know the past couple months haven't been easy, I know it. I know you're hurt. But he left both of us, Dean."

"No – " Dean tries to jerk away, brings his arms up to knock loose his father's hold, but in this moment, John is much stronger than his son. "No, you – "

"YES, Dean…" John grips the sides of Dean's neck, thumbs pressing insistently against his jawline, forcing him to maintain eye contact. The kid's pulse is racing and he's pale as a ghost, himself, pupils blown to hell. "HE left US."

Dean stills, clenches his jaw and breathes heavily. "You told him to stay gone," he accuses, low and even.

John recoils as though the words were another physical blow, another unexpected attack.

"You did this, Dad." Dean's voice finally breaks, and John's heart goes right over the edge with it. "You did it." This isn't the ghost. This is all Dean talking, and maybe he isn't wrong. In fact, John knows he isn't.

Feeling the truth of it gnawing in the back of his throat like a cry wanting to escape, John adjusts his grip and pulls Dean closer. "You're right, Dean. I did. And that's something I have to live with now."

"No." Dean shakes his head, eyes watery. He takes another deep breath, pulls it together enough to keep the tears from spilling. "I have to live with it, too."

"You're right, Dean." John swallows. He doesn't know how much he means it, but he has to bring Dean back to him. "You're right. We'll figure this out, I promise."

The air goes out of Dean like a deflated beach ball. He slumps, seemingly reliant on John's hold to remain upright. Like a sudden gust of wind could blow him away completely, and John grips him tighter to ensure that can't happen. Dean nods slowly, without blinking.

Damn ghost knows when to pick his moments. John hands are ripped violently away from Dean as he's thrown back into the basement's solid stone wall. Fireworks explode before his eyes as his head strikes the cinder block. He slides to the floor and shakes his head, waiting for the sparks to recede. For a moment, John had forgotten about the spirit in the room, but the boy hadn't forgotten about them. Hadn't forgotten how very dead he intended John to be. But he's taken away the spook's weapon, brought Dean back to him. Isaiah's lost his advantage and, backed into a corner, switches to Plan B. Which, really, was Plan A. Raw, physical, first-hand violence. Sloppier, but just as effective as using his son's hands to hurt him.

"Dean?" John calls as his hands search instinctively for the gun.

"Dad…"

The dark room comes slowly into focus, and John can make out Dean crouched in the center of the room, arms wrapped around his head, trying to keep the boy's voice out. The spirit is nowhere to be seen.

The room is tipping sideways and slipping in and out of focus. John drags himself to his feet and staggers toward Dean, collapsing on his knees next to him. He pulls Dean's arms away from his ears, and the kid cautiously brings his head up.

John wishes there was an easy way to fix this. "Dean, there is something in this house that is keeping Isaiah's spirit around. I need you to keep it together long enough to help me find it and this will all be over, okay?"

Dean winces and nods. He hides it well, but he's just as much a stubborn ass as the rest of his family. He's clearly still battling the ghost's influence, but he's sure putting up one hell of a fight.

"Okay." John pats Dean's cheek, gives him what he hopes is an encouraging smile. "Okay. He died here in the basement, yeah? So whatever it is, it has to be here." That also means, as has already been made painfully apparent, that his influence will be the strongest here, and he can't afford for Dean to fall prey to the spirit again.

Dean rubs the back of his neck and straightens. There's a distrust persisting in his eyes, a physical and emotional hurt. It's no wonder. John can't stop reliving their encounter on the stairs. He's a hunter and an ex-Marine, and Dean knows better than to sneak up behind him. Or should. Or would, under any other circumstances.

"What do you want me to look for?"

"Blood, probably. Some other kind of remains. And watch out for him, you hear?"

"Yeah, Dad, I got it." No attitude in his weary tone, just exhaustion, pure and simple and catching up with his boy in a for-real way he isn't going to easily shake off. But he needs to, because this isn't over.

"You with me, kid?"

"Yes, sir."

In a show of trust he hopes won't leave him both wrong and riddled with holes, John hands over his shotgun, knowing the rock salt pellets won't kill him if Dean goes postal again. Won't feel great, though, that's for damn sure.

Dean's hesitant to take the weapon but does, gripping the stock lightly like he's afraid of it and didn't first shoot targets out of the sky at seven years old. John spots his discarded duffel, dropped during Dean's attack, and moves quickly across the floor. He crouches and drags a second gun from the bag.

They search the burned-out remains of the basement for what feels like hours but is probably mere minutes, each one passing without incident. It's slow-going in the dark, though, with little idea what they're looking for. John steps back to the center of the room and runs his wrist across his sweaty forehead, leaving a gritty smear of soot and dirt. On the wall opposite the staircase is the entrance to another room, a door so dirty it nearly blends in the wall, managed to go by unnoticed until now. He sweeps the space with the beam of his flashlight.

"Ah, God." The words exit his lips like an involuntary sigh. John moves toward the thin door, keeping the beam steady. He pulls open the door and swings swiftly to the other side, easily spots the brown smear, the old blood staining the wood, a fragment of a small fingernail caught in the grain.

_Of course._ Something so small as to go unnoticed has caused all of this. "Dean," he calls quietly. "Come and help me with this."

But – _son of a bitch_ – Dean's not home right now.

He hears Dean's heavy, stuttered footsteps. They stop abruptly and an icy breeze rustles the hair at the nape of John's neck. "Dean?"

"Dad. I can't…" The response is strangled, a fight with himself to force the words out.

John's ears perk to the sound behind him, the shotgun he'd given Dean being brought up. He whirls, eyes widening. The double barrel is only inches from his face, and at this range, he thinks even the rock salt might kill him.

Isaiah's influence makes these boys violent, sure, but sloppy and childlike in their attack. Dean doesn't pull the trigger but takes a swing at John's head with the shotgun and he easily ducks under the strike. The metal of the barrel skims his hair as Dean leaves himself open and vulnerable in the middle.

John tears the gun away from him with one hand. "Dean, get it together right now!" A line of fire rips down his arm, across the row of Bobby's sutures as the rough motion abuses his existing injury.

Dean doesn't back down, lunges again and John is forced to kick him away with an audible _crunch_ from his son's chest that does all sorts of things to John's insides that he doesn't have words for.

Dean, weaker than ever, cries out and stumbles back, wheezing painfully. He grunts and folds in half, sucking in deep, whimpering breaths with his hands braced on his knees.

John's heart hurts at least as bad as the reopened wound in his arm, but he's through wasting time. His paternal instinct draws him to Dean like a tractor beam but he's turned away with a sharp, betrayed look, so he returns his attention to where he now knows the boy's remains are located. One problem at a time, as always.

John's hands skim the frame of the door, getting at least one splinter for his troubles but he locates the rusty, damaged hinges in the dark. The feeling of fire spreads down his injured arm and there's a persistent warm tickle distracting him. He shakes out the arm and hears the faint _splat_ of blood drops smacking the concrete. He pulls roughly on the door, a firm grip on the edges of the aged wood. It's one, two, three, four yanks before the rusted hinges give, splintering from the frame. Each yank is a fresh unleashing of hell on his wounded, bleeding arm. The door is heavy as a baby grand piano in his sore, tired grip and he quickly lets it drop with a _clatter._

Dean comes up behind him, braces a hand on the wall. "This is your fault, Dad. All of it." The grimace, the pain on his face and the awkward way he holds himself leaves a guilty pit in John's stomach.

Isaiah stands next to him, a mischievous smile contorting his cold, pale face, and the weapons bag containing the lighter fluid and salt can lies discarded and unnoticed near Dean's feet.

John swallows. "Dean, I need the things in that bag. If you help me, I'll end this, right now. You'll never hear the bastard again, I swear."

Dean shakes his head. "It's not going to end with this, Dad."

John meets Dean's eyes. "I know, kiddo. I know."

Dean bends and reaches for the bag but stops, biting his lip against pretty obvious pain. He gives up on that idea and instead nudges the bag with his foot, shoves it across the floor with a rough scrape and his arm wrapped around his middle.

John drops to the bag and is immediately thrown hard the rest of the way to the floor, his head connecting with the pock-mocked concrete before he can get his hands down to brace his fall.

Dean slides down the wall to the floor, the heels of his boots skidding as his legs shoot out in front of him. His head falls back against the floor-to-ceiling stone face of the fireplace and he exhales roughly, an arm wrapped tightly around his middle. "Dad, I can't…I can't keep him out."

"I know, Dean. It's almost over." Nearly equal parts concern and frustration. Nearly.

John shoves himself upright and digs into the guts of his duffel. He flings the lighter fluid over the surface of the door, soaking into every crack and crevice, concentrating the spray on the spot where he'd located the boy's remains.

_"Stop him."_

John's head whips up at the sound of the boy's voice.

_"Please. Don't let him hurt me."_

Isaiah crouches next to Dean. Dean rocks with his hands pressed tightly to his ears, but even in the dark John can see it isn't helping.

And then in what is nearly a growl, deep and threatening and not inviting options: _"Stop him."_

Dean's hand scrabbles across the floor next to his leg, searching for anything he can use as a weapon.

John pulls his lighter from his jacket pocket. "This is the last time I'm going to tell you." He flicks the flint, bringing a flame to life. "Get the hell away from my boy." And lets it fly.

The door goes up in flames immediately, and John steps back until he connects with the wall behind him, slides down to match Dean's pose across the room. An unearthly howl surrounds them, echoes through the space and exits through the open air above.

John clamps a tight hand over the reopened, bleeding wound in his arm, while he waits for the last shoe to drop.

"Dad?"

John breathes a sigh of relief. "S'just you in there, kid?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I don't hear him anymore."

John rests his head against the wall. The cool rain against his face lends a misleading calm to the situation. The rain picks up force, attempting to tamp out the remaining flames eating up what's left of the door, but he's soaked it good. "Well," he says, "that's something."

*************************************************************************

Dean leans heavily against the stone fireplace, lets what little structural integrity the house has left support most of his weight, because his legs are shouting an emphatic, _nuh uh. Not gonna do it._ Uneven pieces of stacked rock bite into his back but those tiny spots of pain are a cakewalk compared to the persistent, ravaged scream in his ribcage. He's not a rookie and is more than capable of playing through pain, and cracked ribs are almost commonplace in their lives, but this is no crack.

A gray haze clouds his vision, pain and smoke from the small fire burning to his right, a flimsy door scratched and marked by small fingernails desperately searching for escape decades ago, now warping and splintering as the flames they've set eat it up, various _pops_ and _cracks_ coming from the wood. He wants to get up and get the hell out of this basement, but knows how badly that's going to hurt, so he stays where he is for the moment.

John doesn't seem in any rush to Dean's side, but even in the dim lighting his face is easy to read, even if it's strange to be seeing the emotions there that he is. Concern, sorrow, maybe even regret. These are all foreign to John Winchester. Dean's own heavy heart, and hopefully the expression on his face, is the antithesis of his feelings. Betrayed, hurt, angry.

John finally starts to rise from the dirty concrete floor and Dean shakes his head roughly because he can't just yet move quickly enough to run away from his father's obvious intent. He pants, biting his lip to ride out a sudden, sharp stab of pain in his chest. "Don't," he says, the break in his voice betraying him.

The rain picks up again, a low grumble of faraway thunder accompanying the increase of precipitation. The rainwater falling unobstructed through the holes in the roof is chilling Dean and running into his eyes, adding to his discomfort. He shifts in the direction of cover, attempting to stabilize his broken rib with a shaky hand pressed to his side, finds that only increases the pain.

He reaches over his head, blindly searching for a handhold to pull himself upright. His fingers slip from an edge of stone and he drops painfully back to one knee, the impact grinding splintered bone. He cries out and a curtain falls over his vision for a moment. When his surroundings come back into focus his father, however unwanted, is there, hands strong and gripping him by the shoulders, steadying him.

"Dean? You with me?"

Dean doesn't trust himself to speak, nods his head slowly and tries to pull away. John won't allow it. He wraps his uninjured arm around Dean. "Here we go." And rises steadily but gently, bringing both of them to their feet. Once they're upright he refuses to let go. Dean fights it, but can't help but lean into his father. No matter how badly he wants to shove John away, he could use the assist.

Shuffling, uneven steps approach from overhead, and John looks up as they make their way slowly across the basement. "Bobby? That you banging around?"

Punch-drunk on his feet, Bobby slips and slams into the doorframe at the top of the staircase. "Ow. Everyone okay down there?"

John keeps his gaze steady, grips tightly on Dean's arm. "Yeah, couple of scrapes and bruises, but we'll be okay."

Dean would laugh if he wasn't concerned the motion would force a jagged edge of fractured rib bone through his skin. _Scrapes and bruises?_ Blood drips steadily from his father's arm to the uneven concrete floor of the basement, mixing with puddles of rainwater. Dean wants to feel bad, he really does, but then he sucks in a breath and it feels like he's being stabbed in the chest with a hundred tiny knives with a few large shards of glass thrown in for good measure. Broken by his own father, so instead he's fighting a satisfied smile that John is feeling his own pain, caused by Dean's hand. The fuchsia discoloration coming to color high on his left cheekbone is Dean's handiwork, too. _Karma's a bitch, huh, Dad?_

All of a sudden the thought settles in his mind and he pulls away from his father, hands searching for the nearest wall to steady himself. "I hurt you, you hurt me?" he spits angrily. "Is that it?"

John recoils. "No, Dean, of course not…son, I – "

"Don't," Dean repeats forcefully. He uses the wall as a guide and a support to find his way back to the staircase solo. He can feel his father hovering close behind him, but refuses any help as he gingerly ascends the stairs.

*************************************************************************

With a set jaw and determined steps, Bobby leads the way into the dark house, flipping light switches and grabbing up supplies as he passes them scattered on whatever flat surface was most convenient last time he needed antiseptic or a clean piece of gauze. The Winchesters follow on legs shaky for different reasons, and John hovers close enough to catch his son if he can't make it. But Dean's a tough, stubborn kid and mad as hell, and he weaves a fairly straight line into the kitchen. Bobby makes John wait for additional treatment while he tends to Dean, and he leans against the counter with a clean kitchen towel pressed to the reopened wound across his arm and a couple of aspirin down the hatch, a warm whiskey chaser with a follow-up poured and placed next to him. The least Bobby could do, and the least he deserves right now.

The job is finished, for good this time, and the whole group's been through the ringer. Streaked with blood, dust and dirt and all of them soaking wet and shivering. Bobby's hat is still saturated with rainwater, drying in small random patches of discoloration around the brim. For the moment the house is quiet but for the faint _plips_ of cold water dropping from their clothes to the linoleum, a long, lingering clap of thunder from miles away. The storm outside has passed.

Bobby is oddly silent, picking out the things he'll need to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. He's clearly nursing a few aches and pains of his own, thrown head-first into a wall by a ghost-dazed Dean, and he's no young man. His joints protest and creak as he moves about and he's been short-changed on sleep the past few nights, John keeping him busy researching the Turner job and those demonic subjects they're keeping more off-book.

His old friend's face is a marbled pattern of dirt and sweat, and he's working on his second glassful of his favorite pain relief already, clearly either building the nerve or squashing the need to say something they'd all be uncomfortable with. Most likely the squashing, because Bobby's not typically lacking for nerve.

Dean is standing at the table, just barely keeping his legs under him but fighting not to show it. He leans heavily on his hands, bites his lip and stares down at the tabletop, at the glass of whiskey in front of him, debating the drink but something is stopping him. John's pretty sure his son has, at least temporarily, stopped giving a damn what his father thinks of him, so it must be the thought of Bobby's disapproval that's giving him pause. And John figures he's earned that. For the time being, at least.

John keeps his eyes steady on his son, absently picking at a splinter in the pad of his right index finger. Looking suddenly young and pale and ready to fall over, he's keeping plenty of distance between himself and his father, and John can't blame him. He's expected to apologize now, to beg for forgiveness from both of them, but his actions were self-defense, not unwarranted, and influenced by experience gained during this hunt that Dean would sure have a go at killing him if given the opportunity.

Dean's in some pain now, but he's alive, and so is John, so he can't say that he would have done anything differently. Broken bones heal, sometimes even quicker than bruised egos and hurt feelings, and there's plenty of all to go around in this room.

Dean's skin is a veritable palette of bruise hues. Older, yellowing splotches on his cheekbone and temple, and probably his arms, from tangling with the beast in Missouri. The abrasions from the car door have gone without the cover of a bandage the past couple of days, leaving a visible wound at his temple, shallow and scabbing. And itching, clearly, as Dean wiggles his nose and scratches quickly at the hair over his left ear. It isn't so easy to spot his newest injuries. The collar of his jacket is partially concealing the fresher discoloration ringing his throat, from being hooked in John's choke hold earlier in the day. Any additional bruising, of which John is sure there is plenty, is thankfully buried under his clothes.

But the bruises aren't the only obvious evidence of the violence that's taken place. A faint outline of a dusty boot print is drawn on the dark fabric of Dean's canvas jacket, right over the source of Dean's most obvious pain.

Bobby grasps the hem of Dean's charcoal gray t-shirt, lifts the fabric gingerly, and John averts his eyes when he first catches sight of the tightly sewn row of stitches repairing the knife wound that seems to have taken place a lifetime ago, followed immediately by the coloring of Dean's abused ribcage, a deeply shaded blossoming explosion of reds and blues and purples like one of the finger-paintings Sam made in kindergarten. Guilt gnaws in the pit of his stomach, an empathetic flare of pain in his own chest. He doesn't have to see the disgusted look Bobby gives him to feel it, reminds himself again with a painful swallow that the strike was self-defense.

Bobby winces and drops the shirt. He takes a step back and keeps his large, clumsy hands at a distance, not looking to risk inflicting further pain.

"There anything you can do?" John asks in a voice so rough he doesn't immediately recognize it as his own.

Bobby shakes his head. "Wrap 'im up. Stabilize the breaks the best I can. I'd suggest you limit movement for a coupla days, at least."

Breaks. Hurt feeling are one thing, but John's now well and truly injured, broken, his boy. His mouth tastes foul, of blood and dirt and other less definable things.

Bobby plants his hands on his hips and narrows his eyes. "That's assuming you're too damn stubborn to take the both of you to a real doctor."

Dean shakes his head before John has a chance to speak. "No, Bobby, it's okay." He straightens, biting his lip and shrugs out of his jacket, finally putting on full display the pale purple markings left by John's choke hold. For maybe the first time ever, Dean isn't attempting to hide his injuries or pain from his father. He's flaunting it, maybe even wanting John to feel guilty for what he's done. As if he needs any help feeling horrible.

"Jesus, kid," Bobby says, releasing a low whistle, hands falling uselessly to his sides like two deflated footballs. "There any part of you that DON'T hurt?"

That manages to bring a smile to Dean's lips. John feels an intense, short-lived pang of envy. He hasn't made Dean smile in weeks.

"Yeah, my right pinky toe. I'm okay, Bobby," Dean says, in a voice that's almost strong enough to be convincing.

The bleeding of John's arm hasn't come to a complete stop, but it's slowed, and he pulls the towel away, the coarse fabric tacky and wanting to stick to the wound. Small black silk strands hang from his tanned skin where they've popped, and he picks at them, hissing at the feeling of the thread pulling through sensitive skin.

"Quit bein' a baby," Bobby chides, not playfully but annoyed. "I'll fix that up in a minute." He pulls out an unopened package of Ace bandaging, tearing into the plastic. "Arms up," he orders Dean, much more gentle in tone.

John wants to step in, needs to fix what he's done, but knows in truth there are far greater offenses he'll have to answer for, he'll have to fix. He watches silently as Bobby gingerly wraps the bandage around Dean's ribcage, cradling the worst of the bruising, the damage.

Bobby attaches a butterfly clasp and steps back, nudging the glass on the table. "Why don't you take that drink now?"

"Yeah." Even so, Dean hesitates before lifting the glass to his lips. He takes a small sip, meeting John's eyes over the rim. Averting his gaze, he catches sight of his own dirty knuckles grasping the glass and sets it down on the tabletop. "I'm gonna wash up a little, I think."

"Good idea." Bobby gestures for John to join him at the table. "We're almost finished down here. Why don't you get some rest? I 'spose you'll be heading out first thing tomorrow." He looks to John, who nods a confirmation.

Dean slowly and stiffly disappears down the hall, and the two men wait not just for the door to creak closed but for the sound of running water before either of them moves again.

"Sit," Bobby orders with a sniff.

John obliges, and Bobby yanks roughly on his injured arm, inspects the area quickly and waves a dismissive hand. "I'll rinse it out, sew you back up and you'll be right as rain."

Bobby washes his hands thoroughly at the sink before coming back to the table, and John appreciates the forethought. Last thing he needs right now is an infection. Bobby removes the remnants of his previous sutures, sterilizes the open wound and goes about resetting the stitches. And does it all silently, without a word.

When he finally draws his hands away from his work, he rubs the bruise at the base of his jaw, rolls his neck and sighs wearily. He spares one quick glance into the hallway for Dean, but they can still hear running water from the bathroom. "Here's what I've got for ya. All that I know and that I've dug up." Bobby leans with a creak from the wooden chair and pulls a thin, leather-bound notebook from atop a towering stack of books and loose papers and slams it onto the table between them. He flips through pages covered in freshly scrawled notes, pausing to point out a rough sketch. "This's a devil's trap." He flips to another page, taps a second drawing roughly. "This, too."

John leans in, palming the fresh bandage on his arm. "What's a devil's trap?"

"What's it sound like? S'a trap."

"What about warding off possession? You find anything there?"

"Not yet. But I've got calls out."

John nods, scrutinizing the pages. "What about drawing one to you?"

Bobby snorts. "It's not exactly like ordering a pizza. There's gotta be a chink in the armor for the demon to get through. A person's gotta be feeling some sort of vulnerability. So I figure gettin' possessed isn't anything you need to be losin' sleep over."

John glares up at Bobby. "I do something to piss you off, Singer?"

"What makes you think that?" Bobby taps the drawing. "Like I was sayin', it's a trap," he repeats. "This one will keep a demon in." John's fingers press into the page, studying the symbol, but Bobby rips the notebook from under his hand and displays a second drawing. "And this one will keep a demon out. Create a kind of lockbox for things you don't want them gettin' their hands on."

"That could be useful," John says with a nod.

Bobby closes the notebook, leaves it in front of John. "Keep that copy if you like. I've already made dozens."

"'Course you have," John says with a fond smirk, but Bobby seems unamused. He walks slowly to the sink, removes his trucker hat, shakes out some remaining water and runs a hand through his unruly hair. John frowns. "There something you're wanting to say to me?"

Bobby chuckles darkly. "Oh, there's a lot I want to say to you, John."

John leans back in his chair. He can take a hint, but this isn't a hint, this is a flashing neon sign. "Then say it."

"You show up at my house like this, without warning and talkin' about demons, actin' like a damn...how do I know you ain't possessed already?"

"Come on, now, Bobby."

Bobby shakes his head, frames the sink with his hands and leans there heavily, like there's a weight pressing down on his shoulders. "John, you're a decent man, a good father, and a great hunter. And I know you won't let the unimportant stuff get in the way of what matters, will you?"

Dean stumbles back into the room, not showing any indication he's heard anything they've said, but John quickly draws the notebook from the tabletop into his lap, earning a sideways glance from Bobby telling him in no uncertain terms, this conversation isn't over. _He's not your child, Bob._

"Stubbed that toe," Dean jokes to no one in particular as he limps over to the table. "So I've got that going for me now."

"You ever listen when someone tells you to rest?" John asks sharply but not entirely ungently. "Why don't you go on and get some sleep." That part's hardly a suggestion.

Dean smiles wryly, sinking gingerly into a chair. "Sounds like you guys are still working," he says, actively avoiding making eye contact with John. "And lying down on the job is something I've done more than enough of lately." He's scrubbed his face and arms, the absence of dirt and grime drawing even more attention to the damage done, the color of his bruises more stark and vibrant against his pale skin. He looks like the whole damn world has caught up with him, not just the full-body knockdown he's taken the last couple of weeks. He shoots a questioning glance at Bobby, who smiles warmly and nods at the whiskey bottle in the center of the table.

"I think you've earned it," he says.

Dean returns the smile, weary as it may be, and pours himself a small glass. His eyes are bright, and if he weren't in the shape he's in, John would think he was looking for a fight. "So what are we talking about?"

*******************************************************************************

_To be concluded in Chapter 11..._


	11. Chapter 11

Dean does his best to follow the conversation going on between Bobby and his father but he's having a hell of a time concentrating on what's happening around him, the spoken words and getting all of the colors right. The random slips into double-vision aren't helping matters, and every time he blinks to clear it, the room taunts him and swings around nauseatingly.

John stands abruptly from the table and Dean's been playing tough but his brain has a hard time catching up, a stuttered filmstrip that grays out for a long moment. He squeezes his eyes shut and swallows, taking deep breaths, willing the room to have righted itself when he opens them again. It has, but that only means he can now clearly see the expression on his father's face as the man rushes toward Dean.

"M'okay," he forces out, wishing he was feeling up to moving fast enough to get up from the chair and run to another room. Anything to escape this pitiful look on big bad John Winchester's face. He tries to move but his father's large hands are encircling his face, and a chill runs down Dean's spine at the contact. _He hurt me,_ he remembers. _Knocked me out._ He gave his dad one back though, that's for sure. John's left eye is impressively blackened, ringed with a perfectly fist-sized splash of swollen purple discoloration.

Dean jerks away again, more violently, and this time John lets him, draws his hands away to hang awkwardly at his sides as he stares helplessly and helplessly remorseful. Knowing he went too far, no matter the circumstances. Dean has no use for his remorse. He's sorry for what happened but his father rendered him unconscious twice and kicked him across a room, breaking two ribs in the process. Two, based on Bobby's best guess, on a cursory, experienced examination.

He wavers on unsteady legs in the middle of the kitchen, both older men looking at him with wide eyes, waiting to see what happens next, waiting for Dean to make a move. He bails out, averts his gaze and excuses himself with a mumble. "I'm gonna get some air."

Bobby nods kindly. "Sure thing, son. Take your time."

Dean doesn't have to be looking at his father to know that Bobby's words have ruffled all kinds of feathers. He tucks his arm into his side like an injured wing and moves as swiftly as he can manage through the house, bursting out onto the front porch and filling his lungs with crisp autumn air. The scent of fallen dead leaves stings his nostrils and his ribs growl at him as his lungs expand. Pinpricks of discomfort draw his attention like a cat's kneading claws.

He leans on the railing, slowing his breathing to a more normal, less painful rhythm. _You can stay,_ he thinks, surprising himself. For a moment, he wonders if the job isn't over, if the ghost isn't still influencing his thoughts, because these can't be his thoughts. But they are. _You can let Dad go, and stay here with Bobby. Help him with the cars._ He shakes his head, pounds a fist on the railing because, no, he can't.

"You put all this in his head!"

The yelling is what draws Dean back inside, barely muffled through the rooms and boards of the house. He quietly opens the front door and stops just inside, carefully eyeing the back of his father's head. If Bobby sees him there in the hallway, he does well not to tip John off.

"Don't you put this on me, John. That ghost was going to get your boy with or without me in the picture."

_What?_ Dean takes careful steps down the hallway, closing in on the conversation, drawn in like a moth to a flame.

"Maybe that's so, but you pouring drinks and filling his head with ideas of 'what should have been' and blaming his life on me certainly didn't help matters any."

"John, if you feel guilty about something, about the way your boys were raised, then maybe that's just how you feel. Stop trying to put it on everyone else."

"I'm not putting anything on anyone."

Bobby scoffs. "The way I hear it, you're runnin' off friends left and right. Am I to be next?"

"Depends on what next comes out of your mouth, I s'pose."

Dean has never heard his father speak to Bobby like this. It's enough to paralyze his brain, root his feet in place while he tries to make sense of what's happening.

"Sam's left – "

_Oh, shit._ Dean takes a cautious step forward, because this is his cue to step in, this is when he defends Dad, but something stops him before he crosses the threshold.

" – and rather than pause a moment to quietly reflect on what a sonuvabitch you truly are, you just started haulin' Dean's ass all over the damn place."

As Bobby's voice rises in volume and pitch, John's remains low and calm. "I would like to think you of all people would have a little sympathy for my situation, Bobby."

Bobby is pacing in the kitchen, coming in and out of Dean's line of sight. "Me of all…John, when you lost Mary you still had those boys. You still had a family."

"And what I do with my family is my business."

"When you brought that kid through my door dead on his feet and lookin' backed over by a damn cement truck, you made it MY business." Bobby punctuates his statements with an uncharacteristic finger jabbed at John. "I can't believe you, coming here lookin' to pick my brain, thought I was so addle-minded I wouldn't catch on."

John tenses, and Dean doesn't dare breathe. "What are you talking about?"

"You knew. You knew exactly what that ghost was doin' from the jump, and you went lookin' for it! You knew you might as well have had bait on a hook."

Dean's head whips from Bobby to his father. John's jaw is set, no reaction in his face to what he's just been accused of. No denying it, either. A silent moments passes between the men that speaks volumes.

Bobby is undeterred. "You're so damned MAD, John. At Sam, at the world, at yourself. And now lookit you. You couldn't take it out on Sam and you might as well have handed Dean to that ghost on a goddamned silver platter, just to see if he was thinkin' the same sorts of things."

John's shoulders tense; the accusation isn't in the way he looks back at Dean but in the way he doesn't. He doesn't seem to think there's anything worth saying on the matter. Doesn't deny it, just sits stonily while Bobby continues.

"Seein' you treat your boys this way, it's an insult to those of us who never HAD a chance to have a family."

Like every pulled elastic band, John has a breaking point. Like every bending stick, he had to snap eventually.

He drums his fingertips on the tabletop and releases a low, humorless chuckle. The calm before the storm, and even a stranger would have known to heed the warnings. "Don't you do that. Don't villainize me that way, Singer. You had EVERY chance to have a family."

Bobby wears his emotions much more visibly than John. Something about John's words has violently struck a chord with the older hunter. He stares with wide, horrified eyes, and rocks back a step as though physically shoved. He reaches out a hand to the tabletop, unsteady on his heavily booted feet. "How'd you know about that?"

Dean spots an unfamiliar ferocity in his father's eyes as he levels his gaze at his old friend. "People talk, Bob. And when it comes to you, they even talk to me."

Dean steps back, feeling just as horrified as Bobby looks. He knows his dad can be cold, is capable of playing dirty, of hitting below the belt, but has never witnessed him turning on a friend like this. Bobby is a private man, even more so when it comes to his life prior to becoming a hunter. They've never pried, but John has certainly uncovered some story from his past and is chucking it at Bobby just like a boot to the gut.

Bobby glances down, catches sight of at an old turkey-shooter propped up in the corner collecting dust, and it's in his hands as quickly as though it had materialized there. His eyes are dark, wet. "I've got a thick skin, and I can get over the things you've said to me, but I won't stand by and watch you single-handedly destroy all you have left in this world, John. Get."

There may be a reason or an excuse or, hell, even an apology in John's mind, but certainly not on his lips. Not when he so clearly knows Dean is standing right behind him.

One day they'll chuckle over this, the two of them. Dean will make light of the moment for Sammy's sake and Bobby will let him, but in the moment he feels like they're all standing on a ledge, waiting each other out.

"Get the hell outta my house." Bobby cocks the shotgun. "You're welcome back here when you treat that boy like he's your son, not your damned soldier. Not a pig sent to slaughter."

John stands, and before Dean can blink he's disarmed Bobby, almost too easily. Another patented, unnecessary John Winchester show of power. He expels the loaded cartridge and throws the gun to the table with a sneer, for the first time allowing his eyes to flick Dean's direction and acknowledge he was there the entire time. "If you're gonna shoot a man, shoot him. Don't talk about it first." He says it like he's teaching Bobby a lesson, but Bobby taught him everything he knows, and Dean knows his father will never be welcomed back here.

Bobby was never really going to shoot him and they all know it, it's just Dad being a dick, and Dean steps forward now, wanting to end this before the situation becomes as irreparable as he fears, moving to intervene the same way he's always had to with Sammy. Being the good son means his place is between Dad and whoever he's yelling at, no matter what they're yelling about. _Good son, or good little soldier?_ "Dad…" But the thought is enough to stop him, and he retreats.

Bobby shakes his head, settles into a chair and drags the half-empty bottle of Wild Turkey towards himself. "This is a damn pity, John. This path you're on is gonna kill you."

_What path?_ Dean thinks, a rise of panic in his chest, the creeping suspicion that this was never just another hunt has just been confirmed. He's been out of the loop on something since they pulled into the driveway, possibly and probably long before. _What's he talking about?_ "Dad, what – "

"Pack up the car, Dean," John orders through clenched teeth. The bruises on his face are creating strange shadows and contours, an unfamiliar, villainous mask that's overtaken his already rough features. "We're leaving."

He brushes down the hall past Dean but Dean doesn't jump into action this time, for maybe the first time. He looks helplessly at Bobby.

Bobby isn't going to bail him out of this one. He shakes his head and runs a hand over the whiskers on his chin, gives a barely perceptible raise of his shoulders, like, _ah, hell, kid._ He wants Dean to make a choice.

"Dean!"

Dean startles and bumps into the table, jostling his injured ribs. He jams an elbow into his side and backtracks down the hall, the fall of his boots echoing, rebounding off of the narrow walls. "Yeah…yes, sir."

He notes that John's things have already been cleaned out, and a quick glance out of the window confirms that he'd been packed already, his bag resting in the gravel at his feet as he rearranges things in the trunk. Ready to flee at a moment's notice, as always. Dean crams his soiled clothing and toiletries into his own bag and hefts the duffels in one go, stumbling back with a grunt when his abused body protests. _Idiot._

Bobby's leaning in the hall as Dean steps gingerly down the stairs, balancing bags like a high wire walker. He can hear the thuds and clanks of John loading weapons into the car outside in the drive. Dean stops in front of Bobby but can't look him in the eyes. Knows he's embarrassingly out of the loop on something brewing between the two men, and knows with an even fiercer certainty that he's disappointed the man who's always been there for him when his father wasn't around.

Bobby reaches out, a warm, firm hand on his upper arm, and Dean looks up. "John's a good man, Dean, and I don't ever want you to think that I don't know that. I don't ever want to be the reason you think unfavorably of your father."

Dean nods.

Bobby's fingers flex around Dean's arm as his face softens. "All the same, you're welcome to stay."

Dean gathers every ounce of strength he's still clinging to and hefts the strap of his bag over his shoulder, wincing at the pull in his side. "I…can't, Bobby. But thanks for the offer."

Bobby smiles, small and maybe sad, and nods. "I had to. Don't let it be too long before I see you again."

"I won't, Bobby." All the same, they both know if Dean walks out that door now, it's not really up to him.

"Keep you and your daddy in one piece, and don't be mad at your brother."

"Yeah."

Dean pushes out of the house, the hinge of the screened door squeaking and rousing the attention of Rumsfeld from his nap on the porch. The big dog's tail wags once back and forth as he raises his head, and he whines as Dean stomps down the steps.

John is already behind the wheel, engine running and face set. Dean feels there's a timer running on him and he doesn't bother unloading his bag into the back seat, just drops onto the bench next to his father, dragging the duffel onto his lap. "Dad…"

"Don't." John jerks the car into 'reverse' but pauses with his hand there on the gearshift, car idling in the driveway. His eyes drift up to gaze out of the windshield, staring at the spot where Bobby is watching them from a rigid lean on the porch railing.

Dean frowns. "Dad, come on. Bobby's like family."

John swallows hard. "Yeah, well, I don't think we need any more family." A spray of gravel and a plume of dust kick up as John stomps on the gas pedal, lays it to the floor mat.

*******************************************************************************

Bobby had no intention of giving John the satisfaction, but he's drawn outside anyway, does it for the kid. He leans heavily on the porch railing and watches moonlight reflecting off of the ass-end of the Impala as she escapes in a cloud of dirt and gravel kicked up from the spinning tires. He can hear her long after he loses sight of glinting chrome, the growl of the engine bouncing off of thick tree trunks in the otherwise silent night.

Rumsfeld rises with a drag of untrimmed nails along hardwood and moves to his side. His long-time companion can sense the emotions as they pour from Bobby one after another, unable to focus on any one thought as the dust cloud settles. He pushes his nose into Bobby's thigh with a whine.

_Damn it, John._ Bobby shakes his head, puts the old dog at ease with a brief, distracted scratch behind the ear. "I hope you know what you're doin.'"

He figures that's about the only thing his old friend could possibly have left going for him.

****************************************************************************

Fleeing doesn't seem to leave a much better taste in John's mouth than being fled from. He's withdrawn as ever, answering questions with grunts and shrugs, noncommittal about every inquiry Dean poses. There's something subtly different about the look in his eyes, something different about what he's hiding from Dean this time.

Dean doesn't know if this new personality trait is some form of perpetual regret finally bubbling over, or just an evolved form of his ever-present solemnity. He looks at his father with mixed feelings, his emotions like a well-stocked vending machine he's feeding quarters and blindly pressing buttons, not knowing what's going to come out when he opens his mouth.

Day two is the peak of bruising, and John's face is a swollen black mountain range, skin dark and shiny, pulled tight with swelling. Dean should feel guilty, ashamed, looking at the damage he's caused, but he doesn't. Once or twice he's felt like tap dancing, some sort of satisfaction at bearing witness to such a vulnerable, pathetic, utterly lost state in John Winchester. It's something begging to be taken advantage of.

They're in the car again, always in the car, always heading somewhere, though it seems they're driving in circles these days.

"Where are we going?" There wasn't a call. There isn't a job. There's nowhere for them to be, just more places for them to not be.

Miraculously, John doesn't seem to see anything that can be gained by another lie at this point, so he gives a noncommittal jerk of his head that isn't any kind of answer, but Dean recognizes the motion and can translate it as _shut up about it, kid._

But Dean doesn't want to shut up. That wasn't just a friend they left back there, it was family. It was Dean's only remaining sympathetic ear and shoulder to lean on.

John sniffs and winces, brings a hand unconsciously to the bruise on his cheek before catching himself.

A barrier has been breached. They've marked each other, and there's no reason now to be afraid of what words can do. So Dean asks, "What did you do to Bobby?"

John doesn't look over but his grip on the steering wheel tightens, knuckles drawn white while his face flushes crimson. "Little old to be startin' to get a mouth on ya, aren't you?"

Dad's always used comments like this to put Sam in his place, to acknowledge the disrespect while demonstrating his authority. Flexing his paternal muscles. More than anything, it's a way to get out of answering whatever usually smartass question has been posed, regardless of how justified it may have been.

Dean sighs. _Looks like,_ on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows it with some difficulty, like a hangover painkiller with warm, fizzy beer chaser. "Yes, sir," he says instead, at his core the same lapdog chickenshit he was before this entire ordeal.

John regards Dean a moment, for some reason decides to reward his bluntness with an answer. "I didn't do anything to Bobby. People don't always see eye to eye. That'll be the end of this conversation, Dean."

"Sounded like more than not seeing eye to eye to me. He said you were on a path that's gonna kill you. What'd he mean?"

"I mean it, Dean. We're not going to discuss this any further."

Dean stares at the marks left by his own hand. He was given one swing; he won't get two. "What happened that night, in the bar?"

"You know what happened."

_"Maybe, uh…maybe you should stop and think before you next decide to get blackout drunk and pick a fight in a bar."_

_"I started it?"_

He barely believed it then, sure as shit ain't buying the story now. "No, Dad, I don't think I do. Don't you think I deserve to?" He swings anyway, throws one for nothing, because he can't imagine he has much left to lose. Dad's always taught him that owed and owing are concepts with no place in their world. There's just surviving, just one foot in front of the other.

But John blinks. "Yeah, I do." He sighs, guides the car to the rocky berm and throws her gently into 'park.'

Dean's heart picks up pace, cha-thunks so loudly he's sure his father can hear.

John chews his lip a long, uncharacteristic time. "It wasn't a fight, and you didn't start it. That was a lie."

Dean knew it then, knows it as his father is saying the words, so his brain skips right past anger and indignation like taking a big step over a puddle in the street. "So then what…"

His father stares straight ahead out of the windshield, maintains a grip around the steering wheel. "You were attacked, to get to me." The pause before he speaks next is long enough to bypass truth and leap straight into bullshit. "By what, I don't know. Why, I don't know. Will it happen again?" His face hardens. "No, it won't. That I do know."

_He's still lying,_ the voice in Dean's head says. _He sure as shit knows something._

_Shut up._ Dean swallows, nods. "Okay."

**************************************************************************

_A few days later_

It's still autumn, but later in the season and already cold in the Eastern half of the country. Dean squints and shoves his hands deep into his pockets, bracing himself against a sudden, biting wind, thinking California would actually be nice right about now. He swallows the emotion of the moment, not quite sure what it is his father is looking for him to say. They haven't really been saying much to each other the past couple of days. "We need a truck?"

John squares his shoulders, winces and moves a hand to massage the sore right joint. "Couldn't hurt."

The truck, a used, beaten and rusted black pickup, isn't much, but it doesn't have to be to have cost the rest of the cash Dean knows about. He has his own hard-won stash of pool and poker earnings, but he's not about to relinquish it all to his father, not when he's likely to be abandoned any day now. He finds a patch of oil slick making rainbows in the pockets of sunshine breaking through the clouds, trains his eyes there. This life's gotten him used to assuming the worst, and this one hurts. "When are they coming to get the car?" He asks it quickly, like ripping off a bandage.

"How do you mean?"

"Well…" Dean gestures to the truck, removing his hand from the warmth of his jeans pocket in lieu of having to say the words.

John turns to him and quirks an eyebrow. "Nothin's happening to the car, Dean. Truck's for me. Figure I've been keeping the driver's seat warm for you long enough. She was always going to be yours."

All of this without looking at him, and in such a rush of words Dean's not sure he actually heard him right. He glances over at his father and sees the keys outstretched.

Dean doesn't move to take them right away, but turns to the Impala. His Impala, if he'll have her. A peace offering. No big talks, no more fights. No explanations and no apologies, not ever out loud at least. It's just John and Dean against the world and for what it's worth, his father is sorry for it to have come to this.

Because he already knows all of this, and John knows he does, there's no need to say the words, no matter how badly Dean might need to hear them.

For all of the times Sam's called him a good little soldier, Dean never really feels he's justified the jab until he takes those keys.

Everyone has a price.

***********************************************************************

Dean's been eyeing the journal with all manner of intention, in ways that aren't so much stealthy as they are horribly, painfully obvious. His poker face is shot, the emotions on his face so unguarded it feels like stealing to call his bluff when John moves across the room to grab the book from the table and return it to its home in the bottom of his own duffel, carefully placed beneath a constructed and memorized stack of folded button-down shirts and rolls of socks.

Dean's always had some limited access to the information kept inside, devoured notes and stories as they were added, when permitted. Bedtime horror stories while Sammy snored softly in the next bed. Those nights are the ones that paved this broken road they're now traveling, that laid the groundwork for Dean's warped perception of his father as some kind of hero, instead of the broken shell of a former family man doing his level best to hold what's left of his life together. It's John's own fault he's in this position; he elevated himself to the pedestal he's now so desperate to leap from.

With a little encouragement, Dean puts a decent dent in the storeroom of the bar next door before John helps him back into the motel room and he drifts off. John sips a steaming mug of black coffee and muses on the situation while he waits for his own healthy amount of whiskey to wear off. He wrests the journal back out of his bag and flips through the most incriminating pages. Maybe he should let Dean read these newest entries he'd added over the past couple of months, and speed this process of falling along. Let him know about John's blatant, deliberate withholdings, the barely-not-lies, and allow him to see that his supposedly heroic father is nothing more than a garden variety coward. That he lied about the circumstances surrounding Dean's attack. That he knew there was a threat of some kind on their asses and he didn't tell Dean before the black-eyed bitch had her knife hilt-deep in his gut. That he let Sam go off on his own when he knew there was a chance he was in danger.

Let him get a taste of the sort of man his father really is.

Dean's curious, probing eyes have spent weeks following the movements of the thick book like a starving child hungrily watching a massive slice of chocolate cake. Licking his lips. Biding his time. He's been through the book already, recently but thankfully not recently enough, or he'd have come at him the way Sam always did. Or he just didn't know what he was looking for. Either way, the only thing John knows better than his son is the damned journal he's been keeping for twenty years, and a single bend in the corner of one page gives Dean away, the book closed too quickly as John returned before his son expected. His emotions always make him sloppy.

John glances across the room to where Dean is sleeping restlessly in the twisted position he'd done little more than fall into. But that's just Dean, and he's not worried about waking his boy with these subtle movements around the room. He stands at the kitchenette a long while with the journal open on the countertop, averts his eyes and gazes down at the penciled, smeared pages. He opens to the most incriminating section, from July, from New York. Thinks on it a moment and digs into the deep inside pocket of his coat, retrieves the pages he'd torn out years ago, kept hidden from these two sons. Adam is safe where he is. John knows it in an odd, sure way. He's not Mary's son, and this all started with her.

The calloused pad of his fingertip trails along the edges of the papers. Dean lets loose a gentle snore and John uses the sound to cover the noise of the pages ripping free of their three-ringed binding.

It's not enough, not nearly, and he knows it. He's raised a hunter. A damned good one, too. Dean will find the pages, whether in a coat pocket, a lockbox, the trunk. Sam would whine and bitch and argue. Dean will search. He'll hunt. The only reason he hasn't sought out the pages from 1990 is that he doesn't yet know there's anything to look for.

John carefully folds the handful of pages and pulls his silver Zippo from the hip pocket of his jeans. He turns swiftly to the small sink and strikes a flame, holds it steadily and deliberately to the corner of the paper and lets the fire eat his words, devour his secrets. When the heat licks his fingers he releases the journal pages, lets them fall to the bottom of the sink. Watches the blaze do its job.

The thought's been festering since the night they burned the young boy's bones back in Sioux Falls, spreading in his mind like a cancer. It's well past time to put some miles between them, lead any lurking dangerous parties off of the scent. Maybe the only way to ensure his boys are safe is to keep them as far from this fight as possible.

Dean has had a shadowy hollowed look about him since they left Singer's, like he's expecting John to split just like Sammy did. There's a good amount guilt to be felt there, but not enough to change his mind. The guilt has nearly become an entity in its own right, a weighing presence so familiar it's like a friend walking alongside him. He never notices it until it trips him.

John hefts his duffel by both straps, the folded jeans and wadded shirts within feeling instead like a stack of bricks weighing down the bag in his hand. He knows better, knows it's just the guilt tripping him, given an assist by the strain on his sore arms and joints. He pauses a moment on the threshold, pauses even longer to lay a hand on the cold hood of the Impala parked outside the room.

The new truck is a larger vehicle, a hulking, intimidating mass of metal, but he's a bit disappointed in how quiet she is when he turns the key in the ignition. There's no hunger in the sound, no growl, nothing that gets his blood pumping. Alternately, there's no more hesitation to be felt as he pulls away from the room, waiting until he takes a sharp right out of the parking to flip on the headlights.

John drives far enough to be content that he can't undo what he's just done, comforts himself knowing he'll catch back up with the kid in a few days. Then he pulls off at the very next exit, into the first convenience mart he finds. The lighting under the outdoor canopy is bright and harsh, and it's no better when he makes his way stiffly through the automatic sliding doors. He steps around a tented Wet Floor sign and pours a large Styrofoam cup of whichever coffee pot is hot enough to be steaming, and moves quickly to the counter. He smiles tightly at the young clerk at the register, sets the cup down on a mat advertising cigarettes and wrestles his overstuffed wallet from his back pocket.

"Can I get you anything else, sir?"

"No, just the caffeine, thanks." Forces the politeness into his voice because he knows the bruises on his face are enough to startle, if not outright spook.

Mechanical _beeps_ as the clerk keys the coffee into the register, then, "Sure thing, John."

John's head snaps up and he knows immediately. The body is different, but that, it turns out, is the giveaway. The face may be unfamiliar, but the cruel grin, the deliberate manipulation of the boy's features are the same. The middle-aged smoker in the trench coat, the expression he imagined producing the voice over the phone. The demon. "How'd you find me?"

An eighteen-wheeler rockets past on the interstate, illuminates the interior of the mart and a strange light dances across the kid's eyes. Not black, the way it's supposed to be, the way he's studied. The way Bobby warned.

He raises index finger to temple, taps once, smiles.

_Mind readers. Fuck, Bobby, you coulda mentioned that._ "You knew where I was gonna be, that mean…"

"I know where your boys are, too?" The grin widens. "Sure."

John swallows, tries to bring the attention back round to himself. He focuses on breathing, forces all thoughts from his mind. "You gonna kill me now? Make a hell of a lot of folks happy if you did."

"You've misunderstood my intentions with you, John."

"I know who you are now. What you are," he amends.

The boy laughs. No, not the boy; the demon pulling the strings. "Let's call a spade a spade, John. I told you what I was."

John tilts his head, acknowledges the concession. "And because you did, I know how to kill you."

"Do you now? That must explain why I'm standing here, very much alive and well."

"I know how to send you back to Hell."

"That's not quite the same thing, is it? And anyhow, what makes you so sure whatever exorcism you've managed to crap out is going to work on something like me?"

"You saying it won't?"

The kid smiles, wags a finger. "Very good, John. Nice try." He steps back away from the counter, sticks out a bottom lip John wants to reach out and rip off of his face. "No need to fret. Just don't forget what I told you about short leashes and straying pups. So long as you and your boys play nice and stay on track, we won't have to be seeing each other again."

John squints, opens his mouth, some smartass remark dancing across his tongue, but before he has a chance to speak the demon escapes the boy, a violent rush of dark smoke dissipating against the ceiling tiles and caged fluorescent lighting fixtures. The boy's limp body crumples to the floor. He rushes behind the counter, feels out a steady pulse, and thanks God for small miracles.

He shoots a look to the ceiling. "Oh, no," he breathes. "We'll be seeing each other."

***************************************************************************

Turns out the truck was a smart move on John's part. Now he can up and leave whenever he pleases without having to haul Dean's ass around. And he does. Dean didn't realize he'd been a burden his father was looking to unload.

It takes two days for him to split, and Dean really should have seen it coming. Or maybe he just didn't want to. They go out to the bar down the block and John, grinning too big and talking too much, like nothing's happened and they aren't broken and covered in scabs and bruises in the shape of each other's fists, orders a round of beers and two shots of Jack, because that's how Dean drinks now. Dad's music and Dad's leather jacket and now Dad's liver damage, too.

He follows it quickly with another round. And another. And before Dean knows it he's rolling stiffly out of bed at noon the next day with a queasy stomach to find Dad's empty and unmade.

The curtains are open, never drawn the night before, and the room is filled with a cool, bright wash of light. Outside the streaky window the Impala is alone at the curb, a teasing sprinkle of early season snow dusting the roof and hood. When the room stops its nauseating, Tilt-a-Whirl spin, he finds there isn't even a courtesy note on the table, just forty-three dollars in a pile of crumpled bills tossed presumably as an afterthought, rushing out of the door; probably meant for food but Dean thinks it will be better spent on beer or Jack.

He counts out the money and throws it down, smacks a palm against the window. The thin pane rattles against his hand, the vibrations travelling all the way through his arm and down his chest to the patch of real estate still tender there. He winces, and the heat from his hand leaves a smear on the cold glass. _Is this how it's going to be?_

_What did you expect?_ a voice answers.

It's Sam's, and Dean shakes his head, pounds his fist once more on the glass and ignores the residual pangs in his side. _I don't need your guilt trip bullshit right now, Sammy._

_What DO you need?_

That's a tough one. He hasn't had enough sleep or caffeine to formulate an answer.

_Okay,_ the voice concedes, _what do you want?_

A drink. A lay. He's been living according to Dad's plan his entire life. What does he do if he has the choice to do anything?

Anything. That's the answer. The first chapter of a new story he isn't quite ready to begin. Dad and Sammy might be moving on, but he's still not convinced this one has ended.

What's he need? An escape. A purpose. A driving force. Sam finally found one, and Dad's always had one, since Mom was killed.

Dean HAD one, had an out, an offer, and stayed in Dad's shadow instead. He stares down at the keys on the table. They were a silent thank you for sticking around, as well as hush money, and Dean accepted them with barely a moment's hesitation. He would have preferred the words.

He trashes the motel room in a merely momentarily satisfying bout of raw fury and desperate frustration, misdirected but intended for everyone in Camp Winchester, himself included. Dad and Sammy are dead-wrong. Dean does get angry, scary angry, but keeps it inside. Not this time.

Breathing hard, he surveys the damage – shattered mirror, splintered chairs, smashed lamps, a couple of fist-sized holes in the flimsy plaster walls, chunked to the thin carpet. Sore, weeping knuckles to match.

_Dad's gonna be pissed when he gets back._ Dean's sole thought as he shakes out the ache in his hand and spots the gray carpet with blood, and so telling of a state of mind there's no changing the state of. It's going to take a hell of a lot more than what they've been through this summer to turn him from his perpetual quest of basking in his father's pride, earning that hearty thump on the back. He stomps into the bathroom and after a few bracing splashes of cold water to the face Dean leans on the sink, staring at a fractured reflection of a bruised young man he didn't quite recognize anymore.

To hell with John Winchester, if he thinks Dean's just going to putter around the room and wait for him to come back. He steps over the mess in the room and packs up his gear, throws it all into the back of the Impala, and before he knows it he's speeding down a westbound interstate, pulling off for gas, coffee, and a few zzz's stretched out in the backseat when his muscles lock up and he can't press on any further.

Dean finds himself pulling into a motel outside of Palo Alto in what may very well be record time, lifting an atlas from a corner fill-up joint, then a car, then driving through Stanford's campus, scouting. He'd memorized the address found in the back of Dad's journal, finds the building easily enough. The car he's hotwired is a pissy, rusty little teal-stained shrimp of a vehicle with a sticky second gear and a sinfully silent engine. He found the chickmobile parallel-parked outside some kitschy little street-side boutique with a triangular chalkboard sign on the sidewalk. Didn't feel even a little bad about it, either. Did someone a favor, he figures.

Sitting outside Sam's dormitory, Dean wonders about the fine line between stealth and creepy stalker. He also wonders if it hasn't been longer than three months. It must have been, has to have been, for Sam to get so damned sloppy he doesn't notice the strange, not-at-all inconspicuously colored car parked across the street for half of the day. Or he just stopped caring to notice. Like he could scoop everything Dad ever taught him out of a litter box into a plastic grocery bag, tie it up and throw it out with the garbage.

He looks down at the notebook laid open on his lap, something pink and glittery with a slack-jawed pop star on the cover he found on the backseat, pages of scribbled math notes tossed aside in search for a blank sheet. He's stuck, locked up, trying to put into words three months of loss, regret, anger and betrayal. Trying to figure out the best way to say 'fuck you,' 'you were right,' and 'I miss you' all in the same sentence.

_Roses are red, violets are blue. Dad's an ass, but so are you?_

_Take care of yourself,_ he starts hesitantly, with a light hand, but remembers that Sam's pretty much got that down pat. He rips the sheet away, balls it up and tosses it angrily to the floor mat. _Miss you, kid,_ he thinks, but can't put the words down, doesn't want to give his brother that sort of satisfaction.

_S'not about satisfaction,_ Dean reminds himself. _S'about responsibility._ He's responsible for Sam, when it all comes down to it. But Sammy's got that pretty well covered, too, living it up on this ivy-covered campus crawling with geniuses and prepsters. He's chosen a life where Dean has no place, and it's hard not to feel completely rejected. Sam didn't care what Dean thought when he left, so who's to say he'll give a shit now? _Use it for beer and strippers,_ he finally prints in big letters, pen pushing roughly into the paper, almost ripping through.

He hesitates, then because he isn't entirely sure he's ever going to see his little brother again, hastily scrawls, _Love you, Sammy,_ and rips the page from the notebook, tucks it into the envelope before he can change his mind and crams the whole thing into his pocket so he can't leave it behind in the car. He wishes he had a drink. Mighta had that lesson not to mix alcohol and automobiles pretty well drilled into him in his teenage years, but hell, at this point, why not? Just wishes he'd had a little boost of courage for this trip, been trying to stay clear-headed since the ill-conceived binging at Bobby's. Had a few and woke up to Dad gone, so maybe he'll stick to coffee for a few days, see if it doesn't bring someone back.

There's a chill in the air this autumn evening, even in California, and it's trapped in the car with Dean. He'd been hoping for something utopian to have jumped out to him by now, something miraculous about this place to justify Sam's actions, a colony in a bubble with perfect weather and beautiful people and no crime…but it's the same as anywhere. He can't easily pinpoint anything that could so obviously be classified as _Better than My Family._ Then again, he's not the one who's been on a lifelong search for something to pull him away.

_Maybe you should have been._ If _maybes_ were dollars he'd be a millionaire by now, and Dean wishes he could rid himself of this constant running commentary in his head, Sammy's voice still telling him how wrong he is at every turn even from a thousand miles away. Screaming here, when he's so damn close, yet feels the farthest away.

He burrows deeper in the soft, familiar comfort of his leather jacket, adjusts to compensate for the lingering protests screaming expletives from his ribcage, and feels out the smooth paper of the envelope in his pocket. He holds it in a tight fist, and relaxes for a moment, taking deep breaths, getting his head on straight. Just a moment, until he catches the always-present whiff of gun oil, stale cigarettes and aftershave from the collar. _Dad._ He gags, an uncomfortable flush of heat overtaking him, suffocating him. He can't handle this assault of Dad and Sam all at once, doesn't know his place with regards to either of them. It's been a bit of an eye-opener, and maybe the one good thing to come out of little brother's departure. He straightens, shucks out of the coat and carefully exits the tiny car, aggravated and pacing, waiting out his brother to wise up and spot him out here on the sidewalk.

_Come on, Sammy,_ Dean thinks, staring daggers at the front door of the dormitory each time he passes and wishing more and more that he was a least half as drunk as he's been the past few days. He double-checks the address he'd copied out of Dad's journal. This is the right building. Sammy should be in there, has to come out sometime. Maybe if Dean'd had that boost of courage he'd up there pounding on the door by now.

Maybe Sam did see him, just doesn't give a damn.

The chill deepens steadily as the sky grows darker, and he balls his fists, resisting the urge to grab the leather coat from inside the car. He angrily unrolls and yanks down the long sleeves of his navy blue button-down shirt, shakes his head and takes a walk around the block. Great way to get the cops called on him, loitering outside undergrad housing like a goddamn pervert.

There's a lot weighing on him as he returns to the car, heavy, hasty steps on the way back; lost his nerve on the walk and now he just wants to get out of town. Fuck it all. Doesn't want to see Sam, no longer cares to give him the money he's brought along, doesn't know what the hell he was thinking. He's moving towards the door handle when he senses someone approaching from behind, whirls with wide eyes and fingers reaching for the compact Beretta in his waistband because if he's going to be somewhere new then he's DAMN well going to be packing, and sees a tall blonde kid a few feet away, grinning too widely in put-upon friendliness.

Dean's fingers relax, the thought of any immediate threat dispensed of with an eyeful of that doofy grin. He can tell the guy's a student, though probably also a douchebag just from appearance: a false tan, faded straight-leg jeans and a bright blue polo, the upturned collar his only protection from the wind, like the out-of-season chill doesn't bother him.

"Hey, uh, I don't mean to be an asshole, buddy, but are you out here waiting for someone or do I need to call the cops?" Asked with a mouthful of perfectly straight, impossibly white teeth that glow under the streetlamp.

_Buddy?_ Dean wants to knock each and every one of those teeth down the kid's throat. He cocks his head, swallows the impulse to swing but not the one to get the hell out of town. "You live in there?" he asks, jerking his chin at the dormitory.

The kid shoots a glance at the brick building behind him. "Uh, yeah, I do." He frowns, runs a hand through the frosted tips of his hair. "You get locked out? There someone inside I can get for you?"

Dean bites the inside of his cheek, and the movement reminds him of the bruises and cuts on his face. Kid thinks he's drunk, maybe got into it in a bar. Lost his keys. If only the story was that easy. He looks away, sees his jacket on the seat inside the car, the edge of the white envelope peeking out of the pocket. He refocuses, plots a way to use this kid to his advantage. "You by any chance know Sam Winchester?"

"Yeah, actually, I do, I'm just down the hall. How do you know Sam?"

Dean hears, _you don't look like the type to be rubbing elbows with such a polite, clean-cut guy,_ and the douche isn't wrong. He pops open the car door, wrestles the cash-stuffed envelope from the deep pocket of his – _Dad's_ – leather coat. "Can you get this to him for me?"

"Whoa." The kid steps back, hands held up. "I've known Sam a few weeks now. Never pegged him as a dealer."

Dean frowns. "What the hell are you taking about?"

"I'm not really down for delivering envelopes of money for strangers in the middle of the night, man."

"Look, smartass, it's not money." Dean slaps it into the guy's hand with enough force to make him stagger. "Well, it is, but it's not…just get this to my brother, okay?"

"Brother, huh?"

"Yeah."

"Sam hasn't mentioned a brother." The guy studies Dean with the kind of look he'd reward with a right hook if they weren't on the side of a well-lit street. "And you don't seem surprised to hear that."

_Eat me, asshat._ "Yeah, well, Sammy didn't leave home under the best of circumstances."

"Figured as much."

Dean sizes him up. "You friends?"

The kid shifts uncomfortably. "I think so. He doesn't seem like a guy who opens up easily."

Dean shakes his head. "He's not." And then, because this story will be told to Sam one day, if not this day, and he doesn't want to come off as a pompous jackass, extends his hand. "Dean."

"Brady." He pumps Dean's hand eagerly, breaks into another Day Glo grin. "It's really nice to meet you, Dean."

Dean grimaces, rips his hands away and points at the envelope in Brady's hands. "Just get that to Sam."

"You don't want to come up and say 'hi'?"

"Nah, s'okay." Dean steps back, grasping again for the door handle of the car. "I've gotta get going."

"Well, Dean, Sam's apparent brother," Brady says awkwardly, shoving the hand not holding everything Dean's got to his name into his jeans' pockets. "I bet our paths will cross again someday."

A chill drops down Dean's spine as he folds gingerly into the driver's seat, mindful of bumps and bruises that don't know when to say _when,_ and slams the car door, wants the kid to step away so he doesn't see the stripped wires hanging under the ignition. He jerks his left leg up quickly to cover the sight. "I wouldn't count on it."

The kid ducks his head and takes a step back. "Drive safely now."

There's something about his tone of voice that pings Dean's radar, raises the hairs on his back of his neck, but he knows he's screwed up right now, not thinking right, so he ignores it. He's not light on the gas pedal, hauling ass out of town.

************************************************************************

John's been keeping a number of burner cell phones collecting dust in the glove box since the idea of cell phones became a _thing,_ switches up frequently enough for all of the obvious reasons, from lessons learned the hard way. Ditching law enforcement when a hunt's gone sideways or CPS when the boys were young enough to still be prone to mouthing off without thinking to friends and teachers. Dean learned quick but Sam? Damn, there were a few years there, where Sammy just never shut up. He doesn't know much about this new technology fad but his more paranoid contacts are always telling him cellular devices can be traced, your location pinpointed within feet. Despite all of this, he'd rather keep this current number as long as possible.

It's the number Dean knows, provided some miracle occurs and his son will WANT to speak to him anytime soon, seeing as how John left him alone and penniless in a motel room back in Maine. Boy's more than capable enough to fend for himself for a few days while the situation between them cools down a bit. He has no intention of not catching up with his boy, at some point, before the crack becomes a crevice. He just knows they need the space.

It's the number Sam knows. It might already be too late for such notions but he wants Samuel to have a way to contact him on the off-chance he pulls his head out of his ass and comes back to them. The both of them can huff and puff and blow down brick houses when they want and he might not always be with them, but he's never been asshole enough to go intentionally unreachable for his children. He's not looking to become his father, and he'll always answer the serious calls.

In any case, the conversation he's gearing up for isn't one to be had over the phone, as he'd rather not tip any unwanted or otherwise unseen eavesdroppers onto the names or locations of those he cares for. There's still the chance he's already done so; isn't going to risk it again. Nor does he want to drop the dime on himself for not giving up this decades-long hunt as easily as he might have led others to believe. He doesn't want to slip up and have to trash the phone number. _Dammit, Cam,_ he thinks with a sad smile. _Now you've got me actin' just as paranoid as you._

All paranoia aside, this is a conversation John knows he needs to have in person. He plays dumb sometimes but he's not an idiot, and is aware he owes a lot of people a lot of things, and he needs to start repaying sometime. This drive isn't entirely out of his way, and the surface of his debt to her won't even be scratched by this face-to-face meeting, especially when he's looking for a favor from the last person he should be asking for such a thing. But it's a start, and he certainly needs to make up for the ass he made of himself during that last awkward phone call before she's cut him out of her life entirely.

John sighs, settling as best he can on the squeaky bench seat of the truck. The vehicle's not new, not by any means or standards, but the presumably fabric original seat had been replaced before the sale and the new leather cushions are still stiff, needing broken in. The old girl's not yet a comfortable companion for the long drives they'll be taking together in the years to come. He squints as a late-eighties model Honda Civic pulls out of the gravel lot across the street under a cloud of dust, the maroon sedan turning onto the highway in the opposite direction, towards town. The car doesn't pass where he's been parked here at the truck stop, but he still finds himself shrinking into the shadows of the spacious cab. It's easy enough from this distance to identify the slim young blonde behind the wheel, and he comforts himself with the thought that even she if were able to recognize him, she wouldn't know the truck.

John dons his sunglasses and hops casually out of the cab, pausing a moment to stretch road-cramped muscles and run a smoothing hand through his coarse hair. The parking lot across the street at the Roadhouse is empty, a bit unusual even for the late morning hour. _It's five o'clock somewhere,_ he muses, trotting across the two-lane blacktop. He leaves the asphalt and approaches the building, boots crunching on uneven gravel marked with weed growth, the impacts loud in his own head, surely at a volume that will signal his arrival to the restaurant's proprietor. He doesn't possess an unaggressive gait, doesn't know how to do anything lightly. He pulls open the door with a jerk, permanently creaky and in his experience, never locked. The bar is always open to the wayward traveler but is now as vacant as the empty parking lot would suggest, the tables wiped clean and prepped for the evening's business, stacked with paper coasters advertising local craft brews.

He lingers inside the restaurant, not quite halfway between the door and the bar, because he's always looking to be closer to a way out. The middle of a room is the most dangerous part. That's just his way, just instinct, and something he unfortunately passed on to at least one son. The swinging door connecting the bar and kitchen flies open as Ellen kicks it in, hands occupied with an old, shallow cardboard box that originally housed some sort of produce but is now stuffed with napkins, ketchup bottles, and salt and pepper shakers. A highly perceptive woman, she senses the presence in her establishment long before caring to look up and see who it is.

"Kitchen won't be open 'til eleven," she starts by way of generic casual greeting, eyes pointed downward. "But if you're feelin' peckish I can probably get you a…" She finally glances up, stops in her tracks so suddenly it's nearly comical but for the color running out of her face. "Well. Goddamn."

"Hey, Ellen." John maintains a healthy distance across the room, hands tucked into his pockets nonthreateningly, fully aware of the loaded shotgun typically tucked under the bar and the circumstances surrounding his last visit to Harvelle's, however many years removed they may be from that moment. Some things aren't forgotten. Some things shouldn't be.

"John." Ellen drops the box to the countertop, leaves her hands flat on the smooth, polished surface. Her eyes remain wide and her mouth falls open, but it's impossible to predict what she'll say from here.

He half-expects her to shoot him where he stands, or at least threaten to, a too-common occurrence these days. He expects it, and maybe deserves it, but she doesn't seem to be twitching that way just yet. Uncomfortable with the yawning silence, he makes the first move, clears his throat roughly. "Jo around?"

"No, she's, uh, fetching some more peanuts and pretzels before business picks up. We have a few minutes before she'll be back." She squints, sizing him up. "But then, you already knew that, didn't you?"

John doesn't answer, doesn't confirm. He's not normally the type to shy away from confrontation and only waited across the street out of respect for Ellen, not at all to avoid having to explain his sudden reappearance to her daughter.

Like Bobby, Ellen masks her anxiety by keeping her hands busy, adjusting the lapels and folds of her open button-down blouse, wringing a bar towel, pushing condiment jars around, wiping glasses that already appear clean and dry. She does a bit of each as she says, "I'd be lying if I said I haven't been thinking you'd drop in ever since you called. Figured there was no way in hell you actually would, but here I am, lookin' right at you."

John finally, cautiously steps up to the counter. "You look good, Ellen."

Her eyes find his, as sharp and biting as her tongue. "For a widow, you mean? You think I should be hiding upstairs, shutters closed and dressed in black?"

"You don't have any shutters." John smiles kindly, or attempts to as well as he can, and leans on the counter, resting an elbow casually. "And I'm just saying you look good."

Ellen lifts her chin, her hands stilling for a brief moment as her eyes search his face, her expression falling into something more resembling but not quite entirely concern. "Wish I could say the same to you."

John remembers the yellowing wash of bruises he's still toting, the painful crash of Dean's fist against his cheekbone. He sniffs. "Rawhead. In Tampa. Feisty sons of a bitches."

"Rawhead in Tampa, huh?" She draws away from the counter and the dishtowel in her hand squeaks aggressively inside a dry draft glass as she looks away, what concern there was melting like ice cream on a summer afternoon. "So then you weren't just up at Bobby Singer's, asking about the very same demons you called me about?"

John squashes his instinct to rise to his own defense but straightens from the bar top. "You know Bobby?" He should hardly be surprised.

She chuckles and sets the glass aside. "John, everyone who knows anyone knows Bobby."

"He called you?"

"I called him, after you...he's worried about you." Ellen squares her shoulders, throws away the next words with an exhale of hot breath. "I am, too."

_He's probably a little less worried now, though._ She must have talked to him before that last night in Sioux Falls, and hasn't since, or he's sure they'd be having an entirely different conversation. He shrugs, attempting a devil-may-care attitude, though his heart is heavy. "What's there to be worried about?"

"Clearly there's something, or you wouldn't be knocking on my door with the sole purpose of lying to me about where you've just been." No one can spit out a summary quite like Ellen can.

John can't help the amusement pulling his lips into a grin. "I didn't come here to lie to you, Ellen."

"Why did you come?"

John can't quite put an explanation together quickly enough for her. She leans forward over the bar, and it takes some work to keep his eyes from straying south. Ellen is not an unattractive woman. "D'you care if I take a stab at a guess?"

He shakes his head, and she goes back to wiping glasses.

"The conversation we had doesn't lend itself to much interpretation, John. I may not know much about demons," she says. "Don't know of anyone out there that does. But I've heard enough, bits and pieces to put together, hunters who've come across those unfortunate souls who've been possessed. A demon's no feisty Rawhead, that's for sure. If you've got one after you, well, that's damn bad news." She chews her lower lip. "And the John Winchester I've known for…he would never spill his business to so many people." She pauses, meets his eyes and squints. "What you said before, when you called me…you've got a demon on your tail, and you're trying to draw it out in the open, bring it to you."

John's eyes have grown wider as she's gone on, but he doesn't attempt to deny any of what she's saying. What he's doing isn't up for debate, and he's here to see if he's got a shot in hell of asking for a very simple favor. He's not going to need any help bringing the son of bitch to him, just wants to be ready the next time it does.

"And if that," she continues, going back to work cleaning clean glassware, "ain't just the stupidest damn thing I've ever heard…"

"Ellen, I've got no right to ask this of you. No right to ask anything of you, but…"

She sets the glass down more gently this time, with a patient sigh that seems to release any frustration stubbornly hanging on. "If it's about your boys, John, it's not about having a right. And you don't even have to ask. Didn't the first time."

He chuckles, runs a weary hand over his face, wincing as he pulls at tender, bruised skin hiding under a week's worth of beard growth. "You know me that well?"

"Well enough to know what's important to you, what can get you tongue-tied like this." Ellen squints. "There was a time when I thought we were a part of that."

"You might not believe me, and I might not show it like I should, but you still are." John wants to believe he means it, but he can't help but be worried there's no end to what he'll say to soften someone up these days, even his few close friends. Even his sons. "You're right, Ellen, I do think there's a demon out there, and I am sure as hell after it. I don't know how this is gonna end, but I can't assume it will go my way, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure it has nothing to do with my children. Not sure what kind of timeline I'm looking at, so what I need you…" John pauses, takes a breath. "What I'm asking you is, keep your ear to the ground. And call me if you catch a whiff or a word of ANYTHING that might have to do with me, or them, or any kind of demon." He pauses before adding, "And to keep it to yourself."

Her expression hasn't changed through all of this. "You're afraid."

He doesn't have the luxury of being afraid, but needs Ellen to do this for him. Bobby has facts and research materials, but Ellen has information. No one hears more in the hunting world than she does, and he can't afford not to have her on his side. He nods, once, all instinct against what he's admitting to.

Her hand covers his on the bar. "John, I'm a little insulted you didn't think I'd tell you already, that you felt it necessary to ask me twice now. I was…I was hard on you before, and I shouldn't have said…" She takes a breath, smiles a small, sad smile. "What's done is done, and I would never let something happen to you or those boys out of spite for what happened to Bill."

He pulls his hand away from hers, draws back from the bar. He's said his piece, and he'd rather this not turn into anything else. He can't look at and not see the way her past is painted red with the same blood as his own. "I appreciate that. I'd better be going. Jo…"

Ellen nods. "Sure."

He takes long steps towards the door, has a hand on the handle when she stops him.

"John."

_Not now, Ellen._ He turns back without releasing his grip on his exit.

"What happened with my Bill…I did hold you responsible, and for a long time, too. But I'm done blaming you. So you should try to stop blaming yourself, and bring those boys around here sometime."

_They're not boys, Ellen, not anymore._ John forces a smile, feels how tight and false it is and knows she can see it, too. "Yeah, sometime."

Ellen squints. "You know if it is a demon, and you draw it out in the open, it might just end up possessing you. Might not be any coming back from that."

"Yeah." John forces his eyes wider. "Yeah, you're right, I guess I hadn't thought about that."

Ellen nods, not buying it for a moment, but knowing she doesn't have much of a dog in this fight. "Don't be a stranger, Winchester."

"Take care of yourself, Ellen."

The sun is beating mercilessly in the sky, driving John to return his sunglasses to his eyes as he pushes out of the bar. This was a bad, however necessary, idea. There's no getting anything past that damn woman.

At the end of the day, the demon possessing him might not be the worst thing that could happen. If he can trap the son of a bitch in a fragile human cage for JUST long enough…he stands a chance of bringing all of this to an end.

********************************************************************

Suddenly, the ride comes to a stop and Dean's not in Kanas anymore, dropped like Dorothy into a diner on the outskirts of town, deposited without ceremony into a work in progress, a scene already well on its way with nothing to be gained by his presence. He's unsure of his part in this play, lost in a tumultuous sea of strange faces without being entirely sure of how he got here, where he's supposed to go now, or what's going to happen next.

*********************************************************************

_End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said in the A/N for Chapter 1, it took me six years to write this story. Felt like forever. I wanna thank everyone who gave it a chance and read it.


End file.
